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God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother. 



THE 



LIBRARY EDITION 



Hon. J. M. Ashley Souoenir. 




As he Appeared in the Thirty-sixth Congress. 



duplicate: copy 



Souvenir 



FROM 



The Afro- American League 



OF TENNESSEE 



K 



HON. JAMES M, ASHLEY 



OF OHIO 



" That flag means more to you and to me to-night than ever it did . 
before <i'y3 O^' 

« It means that never again, on the land or on the sea, can it be a ilag of 
* stripes' to any of God's children, however poor or however black." — p. 745. 
" No more its flaming emblems wave 
To bar from hope the trembling slave ; 
No more its radiant glories shine 
To blast with woe one child of Thine." 

Page 384, 



Edited by BENJAMIN W. ARNETT, 

One of the Bishops of the A. M. E. Church' 
WILBERFORCE, OHIO. 



PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE A, M. E. CHURCH, 

631 Pine Street, Philadelphia. 
1894- 



'VIS 

6 



^ 



^:< 



V 



\ 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Introduction 3 

Report of Publication Committee 8 

Correspondence with Afro-American League 9 

Speecti at Cranesville Banquet 13 

Answer at Charloe to Senator Stephen A. Douglas's Squatter Sov- 
ereignty Demagogism 22 

Banner Presentation, German Township, Fulton Co 31 

Address at the Wigwam in Toledo 38 

First Speech in Congress 44 

Second Speech in Congress 116 

Letter protesting against the army being used to capture and return 

fugitive slaves 165 

Address at College Hall, Toledo 171 

Speech for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia 213 

Speech for the Organization of the Territory of Arizona 226 

Letter of Congratulation on Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion, January 1, 1863 240 

Speech at White's Hall, Toledo 248 

Speech at Wood County Union Convention 257 

Speech on Reconstruction 264 

Speech when renominated for Congress 298 

Letter to the Officers and Soldiers of the Union Army 305 

Address at the Oliver House Banquet 309 

Address at Napoleon, Ohio 315 

History of the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery and the Thirteenth 

Amendment 328 

Speech on Reconstruction, with Senator Sumner's Resolutions 333 

Copy of the First Reconstruction Bill 359 

Speech on Reconstruction at San Francisco, Cal 370 

Speech on Reconstruction at Sacramento, Cal 385 

Congressional Speech on Impartial Suffrage and Reconstruction 392 

Congressional Speech on Reconstruction 415 

Remarks on Impeachment of the President 436 

Congressional Speech on Amendment of the National Constitution-— 459 

Address on Renominationinl868 505 

Congressional Speech on the Amendment providing for the Modifica- 
tion of the Veto Power 519 

Speech on Grant and Greeley 5G0 

Centennial Oration 578 



Page 

Speech at Montpelier, 1856 601 

Speech at Bowling Green, 1862 630 

Speech at Gilead, 1865 634 

Oration on the Death of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois 638 

Oration on the Death of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania 640 

Oration on the Death of D. R. Locke (" Nasby ") 646 

Oration at the Centennial of Daniel O'Connell 651 

Eulogium on Daniel O'Connell 657 

Letter and Rules on Co-operation and Profit-sharing 661 

Address to the International Train Dispatchers' Convention 667 

Address in the Congressional Campaign of 1890 675 

Memorial Address at Wauseon 681 

Address to Pioneers— 685 

Address before the Ohio Society of New York on the Abolition of 
Slavery in the District of Columbia and the Passage of the Thir- 
teenth Amendment 692 

Address before Grand Army Posts in Toledo 714 

Address on Lincoln before the Ohio Republican League at Toledo 747 

Address before the Ohio Society of New York in favor of Nominat- 
ing and Electing the President and U. S. Senators by direct vote— 767 



INTRODUCTION 



The name of Honorable James M. Ashley revives the 
most exciting- events in the conflict between freedom and 
slavery in the United States. It brings to mind that grand 
uprising against the extension of slavery, which opposed the 
annexation of Texas, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
and the Missouri border ruf&an raids into Kansas ; which 
witnessed the capture by John Brown of Harper's Ferry, the 
election of Abraham Lincoln, the war of the Union, the 
assassination of Lincoln, the reactionary rebellion of Andrew 
Johnson, and the battle for the enfranchisement and citizen- 
ship of the negro. In every phase of that conflict James M. 
Ashley bore a conspicuous and honorable part. He was 
among the foremost of that brilliant galaxy of statesmen 
who reconstructed the Union ori a basis of liberty. He was, 
so to speak, ever far out on the skirmish line, in the most ex- 
posed position. He was the subject of the most violent 
attacks, and, though he went down in the contest, the cause 
which he championed was largely indebted for its triumph 
to his courage and advocacy upon the floor of the House of 
Representatives. His eloquence and power in debate were 
clearly recognized and appreciated by his party, and he was, 
therefore, often put forward to do a work which many of his 
comrades felt reluctant to undertake. 

With many others (the present writer included), Mr. 
Ashley plead the cause of the slave with poetic fervor. His 
speeches on the slavery question were enriched by splendid 
quotations from Whittier's burning verse. 

In this he showed his appreciation of the profound in- 
sight and sublime ethical conscience by which that humane 

(3) 



— 4 — 

poet was g-uided in all he had to say on this question, and in- 
deed on all others where human rig"hts were concerned. 

Honorable James M. Ashley early caug-ht the living" 
faith and prophetic spirit of Whittier. He felt and fully 
understood the flagrant sin of slavery. This will appear 
vividly to all who shall read the addresses and orations which 
have been compiled by his negro friends and published in this 
volume. It was given to Mr. Ashley prior to and after the 
outbreak of the war of the rebellion, to point out the line of 
policy to be pursued in forum and field, for the salvation of 
the nation. 

Conversant as I am with our anti-slavery literature for 
over half a century, and with the speeches and orations of 
our ablest anti-slavery leaders, I am warranted in saying 
that, among them all, there are few, if any, more worthy of 
preservation than are the prophetic speeches and orations 
contained in this book. 

Remembering that truth is many-sided, and that few 
men, even with the best intentions, are able to see it except 
from its single or narrow side, the abundant charity to be 
found in Mr. Ashley's speeches becomes the more marked, and 
attests the nobility of the man. 

To Mr. Ashley, as to few other great legislators, it was 
given to grasp with a firm understanding the problems in- 
volved in our great battle with slavery and in the reconstruc- 
tion of the government after the war. Like Sumner, Wilson, 
Wade, and Thaddeus Stevens, he saw the necessit}- of arm- 
ing the neg"ro with the panoply of the elective franchise. 

He was foremost in the debate for this g-reat measure, and 
did not hesitate to risk the success of his own election, by 
the prominent part he took in face of formidable opposition. 
Nor was this opposition confined to the members of the oppo- 
site party. There were timid Republicans in those days, as 
there have been since, and this timidit}^ was shared by his 
State and the people of his district, as well as b}" mem- 
bers of Congress, and it is no marvel that his prominence in 
furtherance of this measure of enfranchisement, caused his 
defeat. 

With the aid of the Tribune Almanac, I am able to give 
the facts and fisfures in this case. 



— 5 — 

In 1867 Ohio astonished the country by voting- ag-ainst 
the granting- of the ballot to her own colored citizens. No 
wonder, then, that Mr. Ashle}', who championed the cause of 
enfranchisement, incurred the concentrated enmity of all 
those who hated the neg-ro, and by their votes refused him 
the rig-ht of the ballot. 

The vote of Ohio, in 1867, stood 255,344 ag-ainst grant- 
ing- the ballot to the neg-ro, and 216,987 in its favor. 

The majority against the measure, on the vote actually 
cast for and ag-ainst, was 38,353. The number of those not 
voting- on the question was 12,276. 

As the Constitution of the State of Ohio requires an 
affirmative majority of all the votes cast at such an election, 
the proposition to adopt this measure was defeated by a ma- 
jority of 50,629. At all elections for amending- the Constitu- 
tion of that State, each blank ballot cast is counted ag-ainst 
the proposed amendment. 

In Mr. Ashley's own district, of the votes cast for and 
ag-ainst g-iving- the negro the ballot, a majority of 965 was 
ag-ainst it, and 1,057 electors voted blank; so that in his dis- 
trict, the constitutional majority against the amendment was 
2,022. At the State election, on the same day, the Republi- 
can party elected Rutherford B. Hayes g-overnor, by the 
slender majority of 2,883, and the Republican State ticket 
had, in Mr. Ashley's own district, a majority of 975. 

These fig-ures disclose the fact that there was a formi- 
dable faction in the Republican party in Ohio, and also in 
Mr. Ashley's district, ag-ainst granting the ballot to the 
negro. 

Notwithstanding this astonishing vote, Mr. Ashley 
steadily battled in Congress and on the stump, as his speeches 
in this volume testify, for granting- the ballot to the negro, 
and by an amendment to our national Constitution, as the 
records of Congress show, he materially aided in securing in 
all the States and Territories of the republic, the right of 
the neg-ro to vote, and because of his fidelity to the cause of 
the neg-ro, a fidelity maintained in despite of violent .opposi- 
tion, the negroes of Tennessee have prepared this "sou- 
venir " volume, and have requested me to write this introduc- 
tion to it. ■ 



— 6 — 

A number of Mr. Ashlej^'s congressional speeches and 
platform addresses in favor of negro suffrage, notably the 
one delivered in 1865, in San Francisco, California, will be 
found in this volume and read with interest. For ability 
and broad statesmanship these speeches impress me as being, 
beyond question, the master effort of his public life. 

I do not believe that any intelligent man who reads 
these speeches can point to one important proposition intro- 
duced or advocated by Mr. Ashley, in Congress or on the 
stump, whether by bill or resolution, which is fundamen- 
tally wrong either in morals or politics; and if he cannot, 
then all men must conclude that they are fundamentally 
right. 

Mr. Ashley's patriotic Centennial oration in 1876; his 
splendid orations on O'Connell (the early and steadfast 
friend of the negro) ; his touching and tender testimony at 
the grave of his friend, David R. Locke ("Nasby"); his 
address on Lincoln; his speech on Memorial Day atWauseon; 
his noble tribute to Columbus, in his address to the early 
pioneers; and especially the grand speech made by him at 
Montpelier in 1856 — all stamp him as a remarkable platform 
orator. But of higher significance is the fact, that in all of 
his speeches, he puts the rights of humanity above every 
other right and, as inseparably connected with the rights of 
all races of men, he includes the rights of labor, and claims 
that humanity and labor have rights which are above and 
superior to the material interests of capital or governments! 
Above tariffs and commerce, above financial interests 
and so-called vested rights, he places the rights of man! 

He makes his plea for the protection of the weak against 
the combinations of capital, and with eloquence and power 
he denounces the spirit of caste and all special legislation for 
the benefit of any one class at the expense of labor and the 
rio"hts of humanity. His address to the Train Dispatchers' 
Association of America is a generous appeal for the rights of 
labor, and his plea for the organization of all labor is 
worthy of careful study and of adoption by all prudent and 
thoughtful laboring men. 

Conspicuous in the character and in the public life of 
Mr. Ashley vv^as his moral courage. He never lacked the 



courag-e of his convictions. "What he believed, that he spoke 
and acted. Words were never allowed by him to conceal his 
thoughts and it was never his misfortune to be misunderstood. 
In the lang-uag-e of Abraham Lincoln, "He followed the 
rigfht as God g-ave him the ability to see the right." Neithe-r 
ridicule nor denunciation, though both wer^employed against 
him, could swerve him from his course. 

He showed this quality in a remarkable degree while 
dealing with Andrew Johnson, who, when President, under- 
took to array the executive against the leigslative department 
of the government and to substitute his own will for the 
policy of Congress. Johnson was no man with whom to 
trifle. There was in him much more of the lion than of the 
lamb. When his will was crossed he did not hesitate to use 
the whole power of the presidential of&ce to punish offenders. 
He had little regard to consequences. His battle with Con- 
gress concerning reconstruction, was bold, fierce and bitter, 
and was even a menace to the peace of the country. 

It became necessary for Congress to assert its power and 
curb this lion, and Mr. Ashley, as one of its members, dared 
to lead Congress in this perilous duty. There is no power in 
the American government, the employment of which is more 
dangerous than is that of the power of impeachment. It is 
emphatically a last resort, and when it is used by one party 
against another, the whole fabric of government is imper- 
iled. And yet there are times when its employment is 
essential to the salvation of government. 

Such a crisis was precipitated by Andrew Johnson, and 
though he escaped impeachment, the threat of this chastise- 
ment proved highly beneficial. I think in connection with 
this controversy that Mr. Ashley rendered, in the part he 
took, one of his best services to liberty and to the republic, 
yet it has happened to him, as it has happened to many other 
good men, to have his best work in the world least appre- 
ciated and commended by the world. 

It is not necessary here to dwell upon the part which 
Mr. Ashley has taken in the great conflict with wrong. 

His speeches contained in this volume are his best com- 
mendation, and I leave them to speak for themselves. 

Frederick DougivAss. 



Hon. Wm. Henderson Young, 

President Afro-American Leag-ue of Tennessee. 

Dear Sir : The undersig-ned, on behalf of the Publication 
Committee, beg* leave to report that they have carefully com- 
piled and caused to be published, the g"reat anti-slavery 
speeches, orations and papers of public interest contained in 
this book. 

We did this in pursuance of the plan adopted by the 
committee having" in charg"e the preparation and publication 
of the "Souvenir," which the ofi&cers of the Afro- American 
League of Tennessee directed to be prepared and presented 
to Hon. James M. Ashley, of Ohio. 

In discharg"ing- that agreeable duty, we have taken special 
care to collect such matter as we believed to be of historic 
interest to the public and especially to our race. 

Our work has been a labor of love, and is herewith re- 
spectfully submitted. 




Chairman. 



NAMES OF COMMITTEE. 



Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett, Chairman, Wilberforce, O. 
Bishop Benjamin F. Lee, Waco, Texas. 

Rev. Charles S. Smith, Nashville, Tenn. 
Pres't I. T. Montgomery, Grand Bayou, Miss. 
Bishop W. J. Gaines, Atlanta, Ga. 

Rev. J. C. Embry, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Rev. A. H. Ross, Cynthiana, Ky. 

Prof. B. W. Arnett, Jr., Little Rock, Ark. 



Nashville, Tenn., March 8, 1892. 
Hon. James M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio. 

Dear Sir : The American neg-ro has, time and ag-ain, 
been charg-ed with ing-ratitude toward his public benefactors 
and an incapacity to appreciate the public acts of the states- 
men whose life-work has been directed toward securing" him 
the full enjoyment of American citizenship. 

In view of these facts, and in view of the further fact 
that your life has been an incessant warfare against the 
invidious distinctions which have been embodied in the cus- 
toms and fundamental law of the American people ; but 
which, happily for all, have been expunged from the or- 
g"anic law of the land by the enactment of the Thirteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States : we, 
the undersigned citizens and members of the Afro-American 
L/eag"ue of Middle Tennessee, have determined, on behalf 
of the Afro-American League of this country, to present 
to you some kind of testimonial, in recog-nition of your 
distinguished services to the cause of liberty, in the dark 
days of slavery and reconstruction. 

To the end that the passing g-eneratiou may take new 
hope for its prog-eny, in having- recounted to it the triumphs 
which your unselfish devotion in behalf of human liberty 
aided in accomplishing- ; and that future g-enerations may 
have in their homes and schools a perennial fountain of 
inspiration ; and that other men with noble aspirations 
may be encouraged to urg-e on "the harvest of the g-olden 
year, when all men's good shall be each man's rule," we ask 
that you g-rant us the privileg-e of publishing, in book form 
of convenient size, the prophetic and now historic speeches 
made by you in the Cong-ress of the United States ag-ainst 
the crime of slavery, and to include with said speeches such 

(9) 



-10)- 

of your orations and public addresses and articles from your 
pen, of historic interest to us and to all lovers of human liberty. 
We desire to present to you, your family and friends, a book 
which shall be an acceptable and historic souvenir. 

If our plan shall meet your approval, you will do us a 
great favor if you and your friends will place at our com- 
mand such papers, orations and public addresses as may 
have been preserved, which are not to be found in public 
libraries, as their possession will materially facilitate our 
work. 

With great respect we await your early reply. 

Wm. He;nderson Young, 

President. 

Wm. a. Crosthwait, 

Secretary, 

S. A. McElwei.. 

J. H. Keeble. 

M. Vann. 

FeIvIX Paskett. 

L. Mason. 

H. S. Howell. 

M. Hopkins. 

L. W. Crosthwait, 

H. W. White. 

J. N. Bryant. 

D. N. Crosthwait. 
We approve and endorse the above 

T. Thomas Fortune, 

Prest. National League, 
W. H. Anderson, 

Secretary. 



Toledo, Ohio, March 19, 1892. 

Gkntlemen : Your esteemed favor of the 8th inst. is 
before me. I would not disg-uise the fact that your com- 
munication stirs my heart with pleasurable emotions. In- 
deed it is a source of unalloyed satisfaction to me to know 
that the officers and members of the "Afro-American 
l^vcagfue " of Tennessee remember me and my work in be- 
half of their race, at a time when they were held in cruel 
bondag-e and could neither speak nor act as they can now, and 
that they voluntarily propose to honor me in the manner in- 
dicated. 

When the liberation of every slave beneath our flag- was 
officially decreed by Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proc- 
lamation, it became our bounden duty as a nation to confirm 
and make perpetual that act of liberation, so that in the land 
of Washington a slave would be as impossible as a king". 

In common witli many others I did ho more than my 
duty in that g-reat historic battle. But I do not attempt to 
conceal from any one that I am proud of my anti-slavery 
record, and grateful for the evidence which your letter g-ives 
me, of its recognition by the colored citizens of Tennessee. 

If you compile, as proposed, from official or authenticated 
sources, any utterances of mine, touching the enslavement of 
men, I am confident that from whatever page you may 
select, you will not find a word, act, or vote of mine, which 
either you or any of my friends could wish to change or blot. 

In consenting to your request, I am not without hope 
that I may thus contribute, as you suggest, some word or 
thought that may aid in the advancement of your race. 

I regret, however, that I can supply you with but little 
matter of personal or historic interest outside of the public 
records. My library, and all my valuable official and private 
papers, were destroyed some years ago bv fire, so that I 

(11) 



— 12 — 



cannot furnish you with papers which were to me personally 
of g-reat historic interest. But such addresses and papers as 
I have been able to collect from friends, tog-ether with a halt 
dozen or more public addresses made since I was in Cong-ress, 
I shall be ready to place in your hands whenever you or your 
authorized ag^ent may call for them. 
I have the honor to be, 

Very respectfully yours, 

Jamks M. Ashley. 
To 

Wm. Henderson Young, Esq., 

President. 
Wm. a. Crosthwait, Esq., 

Secretary. 
and others, 

Nashville, Tennessee. 

Letter from Rev. J. C. Price, President of Livingrstou CoUege, Salis- 
bury, N. C. 
Wm. a. Crosthwait, Esq. 

Dear Sir : Your letter and circular are received. I read with 
interest and pleasure the pamphlets of the Hon. James M. Ashley, 
■which you so kindly sent me. I heartily endorse the movement 
that has in view a " testimonial" in recognition of Mr. Ashley's dis» 
tinguished services in the interest of human liberty and of the 
equality of all men before the law. It seems to me not only a patri- 
otic but a grateful endeavor as well. 

I am yours sincerely, J. C. Price. 




J. C. PRICE. 



ADDRKSS 

DELIVERED AT CRANESVILLE, OHIO, 
JANUARY 27th, 1859. 



ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING OE THE PEOPLE OF PAULDING AND 
DEFIANCE COUNTIES. 



On Friday of last v^^eek, says the Paulding- Eag-le, Hon. 
J. M. Ashley visited Cranesville, in this county, and stopped 
with General Curtis. The citizens of Crane and Mark town- 
ships. Defiance count3', turned out en masse to welcome him. 
They came up feeling- they were to see a man who would 
maintain their rig-lits and endeavor to redress their wrong-s. 
General Curtis had prepared an excellent dinner, after partak- 
ing- of which, Esquire Hutchinson of Mark township was 
called to the chair, and Eewis S. Gordon appointed secretary, 
when the following- toast was read : 

" Our Congressman-elect — Gen. J. M. Ashley, of 
I/Ucas, — entitled to our confidence by his services in defense of 
our cause when there appeared no hope of success ; we wel- 
come him with pride as our g-uest, and pledg-e him that the 
citizens of Paulding- county, who were first to invite him to 

Letter from Hon. James Hill, Postmaster, Vicksburg, Miss. 
The first three addresses which appear in this book were deliv- 
ered, as the reader will observe, after Mr. Ashley's first election, and 
prior to taking his seat in Congress, and two years before President 
Lincoln's first election. Mr. Ashley was then a young man, and 
had never been in public life. V/hen the time and circumstances are 
remembered under which these addresses were delivered, it will be 
conceded that they are remarkable, as well for their patriotic 
thought as for their breadth and depth, and for the clearness and 
hopefulness of their prophecy. The address at Archibald is a plat- 
form in itself, and will stand for all time as an epitome of republican principles. The 
address at Cbarloe is a masterly answer to the pro-slavery sophistry of Stephen A. 
Douglas, as delivered in a speech at Memphis, Tennessee, December 1, 1858. In this ad- 
dress Mr. Ashley put Douglas's own words in the mouth of the Emperor of China 
with a force and truthfulness that could not be successfully answered then, nor now. 

James Hill. 

(13) 




14- 



the leadership, will be the last to desert him while he is faith- 
ful in the maintenance of the Union, aud true to the princi- 
ples of freedom. Ag^ain we say, we welcome him here." 

After v/hich General Ashley made the following" address : 

I will be more than compensated, Mr. President, for all my 
past labors in the ranks of the Republican party, if, while 
representing- this district at Washing-ton, I shall be able to re- 
tain the g-ood opinion and unwavering- friendship heretofore 
shown me by the people of Paulding- county. And if I am ever 
false to principle, unfaithful to duty, or should cease to defend 
and maintain a reverential reg-ard for the union of these States, 
may you forg-et the past and condemn me as an unworthy 
and unprofitable servant. 

I come to participate with you, ladies and g-entlemen, in a 
social g-athering-, and not to make a speech, but in person to 
thank most cordially my fellow-citizens of this county for the 
support g-iven me at the recent election. I am indeed g-reatly 
indebted to the true democracy of little Paulding- for the 
past and present manifestations of their reg-ard and confi- 
dence. 

Over five years ag-o, and when comparatively a strang-er 
in the district, it was you who first united in requesting- me 
to become j^our standard-bearer ; you who first publicly ex- 
pressed sympathy with me in the efforts I (in common with 
others) was making- to org-anize, without reg-ard to past 
party associations, the friends of freedom in this State and 
district into a new and honest democratic part}^, representing- 
the principles of Washing-ton and Jefferson. From that hour 
to this, your friendship has been uniform and 3'our support 
most cordial, not only in conventions, but, when opportunity 
offered, at the ballot-box. For this g-enerous confidence I 
feel deeply grateful, and hope so to discharg-e the duties of 
the position you have aided in assig-ning- me as to merit 
its continuation. 

The Democratic-Republican party of Ohio and in this 
district have achieved a g-lorious triumph over the allies of 
the slave barons. This triumph may rig-htfully be called a 
triumph of truth over error, of rig-ht over wrong-, of liberty 
and political independence over despotism, and centralized 
government, in the hands of the President ; a triumph of the 



— 15- 

friends of tlie Union over disunionists and political tricksters ; 
of the constitution as interpreted by our fathers, over the 
sectional interpretation of the slave democracy and the Su- 
preme Court. It is indeed a g-lorious triumph, and one well 
worthy of our cong-ratulations. But let us remember that this 
triumph, althoug-h achieved by our union and energ-y, and the 
power of our principles, was not achieved alone for our benefit 
as a party, nor for any one of us as individuals, but that it was 
achieved for the benefit of the whole people ag-ainst corrupt 
presidential combinations and party despotism. 

As citizens we are divided in political opinions, and must 
of necessity act within different political organizations, and I 
am pleased to learn that some of our friends who differ from us 
are present this afternoon ; it is proper that it should be so. 

Jefferson said when speaking- of the people, "We are all 
Republicans and all Federalists," and so we are to-day, all citi- 
zens of the same country, having" common hopes and a com- 
mon destiny. If the constitution confers any blessing* upon 
us, it must, if the g-overnment be rightly administered, confer 
its blessings upon all. If the constitution be violated and the 
Union dissolved (which God forbid), a common ruin will come 
alike upon the whole people, regardless of men or party. If, 
however, the government be honestly administered under the 
constitution as its framers administered it, and the sover- 
eignty of the people and the rights of the States be re- 
spected, this Union which, under the blessing of heaven, has 
come down to us, will continue forever, and a Republic and 
the Union of these States be one and inseparable. But let the 
true principles which are the foundation of our government, 
the sovereignty of the people, and the right of the States, be 
violated, and presidential, senatorial or judicial usurpa- 
tion continue as it has begun, and there is ,no guarantee for 
either a continuance of the Union or a Republic. To preserve 
inviolate the constitution and the Union, to roll back the dark 
tide of sectionalism and fanaticism which is insidiously ap- 
proaching us in the shape of a formidable political party or- 
ganized under the lead of a privileged class, and bearing the 
sacred name of Democrat, is the purpose and mission of the 
Republican party. 



— IG 



This wc cannot accomplish at once, nor without great 
labor and a union of the friends of freedom, but we can and 
shall accomplish it, if we are true to the principles and doc- 
trines of the fathers of the revolution, as I believe we shall be. 
If I thought it possible to fail, I should have no faith in the 
success of any just appeals to the people. But we shall not 
fail. I believe the right will yet triumph, and that the in- 
herent power of our principles will make us invincible. Let 
us then rally around our banner, the banner of "liberty 
and union," bowing- to no presidential dictations or judicial 
usurpations, acknowledging no higher earthly power than the 
constitution of our country, and the individual responsibility 
and sovereignty of the citizens, and a triumph, a glorious tri- 
umph, awaits us. Yes, the future, the g-olden future, prom- 
ises to us the realization of all our hopes, the inaug-uration of 
a true democracy in the land of Washington, and the admin- 
istration of our national g-overnment as it was administered 
by our fathers, so that in every State and in every Territory 
in all our broad Union, there shall eventually come an end to 
oppression and to slavery. Let us keep this faith or none. 
If as a people we so act as to deserve this deliverance, we 
shall get it, never doubt it. Since the organization of the 
Republican party, I have contemplated with rapture, not only 
this triumph, but the inaug-uration of the day long- looked 
for which shall surely come, when not only in America and 
in Europe, but in every land beneath the sun, despotism shall 
cease, aristocracies and special privileg-es have an end, and 
the people of every race and religion be fully and freely en- 
franchised. This faith g-rows stronger with every contest, 
and though our principles and most g-enerous aspirations for 
humanit}' have been everywhere condemned and disparag-ed 
with unbecoming mendacity by our opponents, we must not be 
deterred from the faithful defense of these principles, but re- 
member that as citizens, we have a higher duty to perform than 
blind obedience to the behests of any party, and that these 
malignant assaults have ever been the favorite weapons of the 
enemies of right. During- the last canvass I was person- 
ally assailed b}' the opposition, with a rudeness and bitterness 
which told too plainly the desperation of their cause in this 
locality and the unsavory character of the men who are its 



— 17 



recog-nized leaders. It is a source of much satisfaction to me 
now, as I trust it is to you and all my friends, to know that 
in my late canvass I nowhere descended to personalities, 
or appeals to the baser passions of men, or to the use of an 
arg-ument or remark that would not have been entirely in place 
and proper in any leg-islative body. 

I felt myself hig-hly honored in being- commissioned by you 
to stand up and defend the principles of Jeffersonian democrac}^ 
when most bitterly assailed and insulted by its professed 
friends. The streng-th and confidence which I felt in defend- 
ing- them arose from no over-estimate of my own abilities, but 
from a simple reliance upon the power of truth. Yes, upon 
the rock of truth we rest our cause, and we have the promise 
that neither adverse winds nor waves shall prevail against 
it. When truth was born ang-els rejoiced. God in his love 
sent it down from heaven to earth for the guidance of man. 
It is a principle that will never die ; humanity cannot meas- 
ure its omnipotent streng-th. It has often been crushed to 
earth, but survives to-day in all its orig-inal power, and will 
live to witness the death of all its foes. Neither earthly wis- 
dom nor worldly policy can stay its advance or prevent its 
final triumph. 

In the mig-hty political conflict which is approaching- be- 
tween freedom and despotism in this country, it will g-ain a 
victory such as has not been recorded since the org-anization 
of g-overnments by man, because it will be a victory for uni- 
versal liberty, encircled in a halo of rig-hteousness and peace. 
It may not be achieved this 3'ear or next, but it will come ; be 
not deceived, it will surely come ; no earthly power can stay it. 

That this great party of freedom to which we belong will 
prove the salvation of our country, I firmly believe. Let us 
see to it, then, that none but good and true men are chosen 
by us as leaders, and that we preserve the organization free 
from the corrupting influences of compromises. 

You have all read of the numerous schemes proposed by 
as many different political tricksters, all tending to a total 
abandonment of the Republican organization as a distinct 
national part}'. It was attempted b}' a large number of these 
disorganizers during the late contest in Illinois, where they 
made an effort to drive the Republican party in that State into 



18- 



the support of Mr. Doug-las. I know this to be true, for after 
our election in this State I went to Illinois and labored until 
the election for the success of the Republican cause. There 
I learned to mysurpiise that there were men here in Ohio, and 
all over the Union, editors, leading- politicians, and members 
of Cong^ress, who, having- been entrusted by a Republican con- 
stituency, betrayed that trust far enoug-h to unite (some 
openly and many secretly) in counseling" and urg-ing- so 
shameful an abandonment of our principles and org-anization 
as the election of Mr. Doug-las as senator, for the alleg-ed 
purpose of obtaining- a temporar}^ triumph over Mr. Buchanan. 
Could the madness of folly have exceeded this ? 

By this means Abraham Lincoln, one of our best and truest 
men, was defeated in Illinois, althoug-h we have a Republi- 
can majority in that State, and Mr. Doug-las is ag-ain returned 
to the Senate of the United States for six 3'ears. This may be 
particularly g-ratifying- to that class of professed Republicans 
who aided in bring-ing- about such a state of thing-s, but it ap- 
pears to me one of the greatest misfortunes that ever befell a 
free people. 

Mr. Buchanan and his administration had been passed 
upon and condemned ; he had no long-er an}' power for evil ; 
he is a stench in the nostrils of all honest people, and in two 
years more the country will be rid of him, and I trust of the 
party which elected him, but Mr. Doug-las is fastened upon 
the country for six years, which probably could not have been 
done but for the powerful outside influence to which I have 
alluded. Suppose he does antag-onize Mr, Buchanan's admin- 
istration, which I do not believe he will, on any material 
issue, he will do it, if at all, only far enoug-h, on the slavery 
question, to deceive and mislead the Northern people, while 
secretly he will be in leag-ue with every Southern scheme for 
the propagation of slavery, as he openly declares that he 
" does not care whether slavery is voted up or voted down." 

These schemes for the disinteg-ration of the Republican 
party orig-inated either with vain, weak, and ambitious men, 
who hoped in the general disorganization thus effected to 
rise to the surface and become leaders, or else with cun- 
tting and designing traitors in our own ranks. It matters not, 
however, from whom these overtures for a surrender come ; 



— 19 — 

if from those who have been entrusted with our confidence, 
they are spies in our camp and must be shot down. If from 
those who were our most bitter revilers, and caused our defeat 
in 1856, or those who profess to be in our ranks and entertain 
propositions for a surrender, they are unworthy of our confi- 
dence another hour. I trust that all these men may be ferreted 
3Ut, in every State, and the people demand a surrender of the 
trust committed to them, no matter how hig-li the station, be- 
cause of their conspiracy, for the betrayal of a cause entrusted 
to them to defend. Let us set our faces as flint ag-ainst 
such men and such schemes. We in Ohio, who left the 
old dominant party, having- possession of all the depart- 
ments of the National and State Government, did so be- 
:ause of the departure of that party from every principle of 
iemocracy ; and whenever the alternative is presented ag-ain to 
the same democratic element in the Republican party, to aban- 
ion the principles which it cherished, and held, when in the 
Did org-anization, to be paramount to all others, it will reso- 
lutely adhere to and defend them ag-ainst any and every 
scheme for their abandonment. Did you, my fellow-citizens, 
who were nearly all members of the old Democratic party in 
this county, leave that org-anization in mass, as you did, and 
aid in the formation of the Republican party merely for the 
sake of chang-e ? [No, No.] Or was it because you deter- 
mined to follow principles in preference to leaders? ["To 
follow principles."] 

I knew you would thus respond. I may say further that 
the men who could thus leave a dominant party for a princi- 
ple and join a party weak in numbers, strug-g-ling- ag-ainst a 
party having- in its hands all the patronage of the National 
Government, and the prestig-e of many victories, may be re- 
lied upon to withstand the blandishments of power, and to pre- 
"rer defeat to the humiliation of a triumph secured by a 
surrender of their cherished principles. To all true men one 
such victory would be a g-reater humiliation than a score of de- 
feats. The live men in the Republican party, "The Old 
Liberty Guard," who have g-iven it its life and vitality, have 
foug-ht too many battles, when their numbers were compara- 
tively insig-nificant and when there was no hope of success, to 
think of abandoning- the Republican org-anization, now that 



— 20 — 

thousands of new recruits are daily joining- the army of free- 
dom and victory everywhere throug-hout the Free States 
has crowned our appeals to the judg-ments and hearts of 
the people. 

The banner of liberty can wave g-allantly only over well- 
contested fields, where brave, earnest men, armed with the 
panoply of truth, are battling ag-ainst slavery and its allies 
for the liberty of the human race. 

"Then let us rally 'round our banner, 

For none can better be ; 
Shout out the g-ood old watchword, 

Death or victory. 
Blow the blasts upon your bug-les, 

Call the battle roll anew. 
If months had well nig-h won the field. 

What may not four years do ? " 

You, my fellow-citizens, have aided most materially in 
commissioning" me to represent the principles of the Republi- 
can party in the councils of the nation, and to defend, so far as 
the vote and watchfulness of a representative can, your inter- 
ests and that of free labor everywhere, against the sectional 
fanaticism and combined forces of the slave barons. I shall 
g-o to the scene of my labors with a distrust in my own abili- 
ties, and a consciousness of the want of experience indispen- 
sable to success in legislative assemblies, but faith in the justice 
of our cause, and the immutability of our principles, shall be 
my shield of protection and defense. With them for my g-uide, 
I have no fears but that the inexperience of the most unskil- 
ful may become formidable, and their humblest defender be 
able to withstand the attacks of the strongest. But how- 
ever true our principles and certain of ultimate success, a repre- 
sentative needs and must have the cordial cooperation and sup- 
port of his constituents, or his efforts, be they ever so able and 
well-directed, will be in a g-reat deg-ree powerless. That I shall 
have this support from Paulding county, your past and present 
expressions of esteem and regard warrant me in believing. 
In conclusion, let me say that this social gathering is most 
agreeable and pleasant, and that I am amply repaid for the un- 



21 



avoidable disappointment we had on the 5th of October last. 
Had it not been for that disappointment, this gatherino- 
■would not have been held, the meeting- being- intended, as I 
understand by General Curtis and my friends here, to com- 
pensate, in part, for that disappointment. 

May we all live to witness many such reunions, and may 
each returning- occasion of the kind find the cause of our re- 
joicing- as ample as this afternoon, and the citizens of little 
Paulding- as true to freedom, as faithful to the principles of 
rig-ht in any contest throug-h which we may be called to pass, 
as the g-allant patriot and hero of the Revolution in honor of 
whom your county was named. 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT CHARLOE, OHIO. 



On Monday, January 31, 1859, Hon, J. M. Ashley, of 
Toledo, visited Paulding- county, and presented the Republi- 
cans of Brown township with a fine flag-, it being- the 
banner township of this county. 

Early on Monday morning- the people of Brown town- 
ship, and from other portions of the county, beg-an to gather 
at Charloe. They came with music — rich, soft and sweet — 
and an enthusiasm which far exceeded our expectations, and 
which told that the feeling- in Paulding- is not of a spasmodic 
nature. 

At eleven o'clock Hon. Mr. Ashley presented to the Re- 
publicans of Brown the flag-, in an appropriate speech setting- 
forth the object of the g-ift, and requesting that they should 
g-ive the flag- to that township which shall hereafter g-ive 
the greatest increased Republican vote over that of last fall. 

J. W. Ayres, on behalf of the citizens of Brown, made 
some remarks w^hich we were not able to report, after which 
a procession was formed, and the throng- marched to the 
court-house, where Judge Shirley was called to the chair, 
and after calling the house to order, J. O. Shannon read the 
following sentiment : 

" Gen. Ashle;y, of ToIvEdo — Our Congressman-elect — 
"We bid him welcome to the homes and hearts of the Republi- 
cans of Paulding. May his future efforts, in the councils of 
the nation, be as successful and as worthy of our hearty ap- 
proval, as his past labors in defense of true democracy — ever 
battling against that kind of popular sovereignt}^ that would 
allow the majority to enslave the minority, because they were 
weak and defenseless, so that when he returns to his home 
we may say to him 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'" 

(22) 



The chairman then introduced Mr. Ashley, who made the 
following- address : 

Mr. President : I thank you, most heartily do I thank 
you, for your words of encourag-ement and confidence, and I 
trust that my acts and votes in the new and untried field of 
labor, to which you have commissioned me, will be such that 
on my return home I may find, to some extent at least, to have 
justified your expectations. I can kardly hope, however, 
with my inexperience, to be entitled to the full commenda- 
tion of the sentiments just read. 

I need not say, ladies and g^entlemen, that it affords me 
much pleasure to meet and participate with you in the fes- 
tivities of this afternoon ; my presence at this season of the 
year is a g-uarantee for that. When I was here in Aug-ust 
last and addressed you, you promised me that Brown town- 
ship w<?uld g-ive the larg-est increased Republican vote of any 
township in the county of Paulding-, and you have nobly re- 
deemed that promise. For the support you then g-ave me, 
and the compliment of this afternoon's entertainment, I am 
deeply g-rateful, and shall spare no effort to earn a continu- 
ance of your confidence. 

I indeed hardly know what to say, or how to say what I 
would, in return for the many acts of personal regard you 
have shown me. 

I am a poor hand to make such a speech as is g-en- 
erally expected on occasions of this kind, and as I have al- 
ready spoken before a meeting- similar to this at Gen. Cur- 
tis's, where some of you were present, I will now only 
detain you long- enoug-h to refer briefly to such matters as 
sug-g-est themselves to me on the spur of the moment. 

The Republican party, my fellow-citizens, in the late 
contest in this district and State, and indeed all over the 
Union, has g-iven evidence of its life and vitality, and the 
power of .its principles. The basis of its faith is the rig-hts 
of man. An investig-ation by the people of our claims to 
their support is all we ask. 

We need no trickery, fraud, or falsehoods to commend 
the doctrines of the Republican party to the enlightened un- 
derstanding- of ever}^ independent citizen, and when once our 
principles are clearly- understood we shall be invincible. Let 



— 24. 



none be discourag-ed or weary in well-doing-. Let all remem- 
ber that liberty is the birthright of the human race, that no 
consistent believer in that g-reatest and best charter of human 
freedom can do otherwise than acknowledg-e the justice ol 
that principle which recognizes the natural rig-ht of every 
human being, and claims that they are entitled to the pro- 
tection of life and liberty, by every law of man's enactment. 
The Creator made {ill men of every race and country free, 
and 

"On this round earth, which God to Adam gave 
For freedom, there breathes no fettered slave 
That does not hope and long and pray to see 
And taste the fruit that grows on freedom's tree." 

And while this is true, I cannot believe that the Creator 
intended to leave man to struggle on forever without 'attain- 
ing that freedom. He destines a calmer and brighter future 
for the struggling millions of earth. 

Conceived in the bosom of Everlasting Love, this princi- 
ple, "that God is no respecter of persons," was sent down to 
us and authoritatively proclaimed to the world by the great 
apostle of the new covenant, more than 1800 years ago. 
Neither you nor I can fix the day when this just principle 
will become a law universally received by man ; but it will. 
I have an abiding faith in its ultimate fulfilment, and shall 
not cease to believe it because I cannot point to the hour 
when the final triumph shall be witnessed. It is enough for 
us to know our duty as men and to act it ; to know that the 
right will triumph, that truth cannot fail ; that amid all the 
sophistry of demagogues, of compromises with wrong and 
popular sovereignty deceptions, there will come an hour, with 
every man, when his conscience will refuse to submit to the 
doctrines and commands of any party which tramples upon 
the rights of man. Because the Democracy disregards the 
natural rig-hts of man we oppose it, and cannot assent to the 
interpretation given by it to the so-called doctrine of popular 
sovereignty, which surrenders the natural rights of man to 
the unlicensed will of a majority, and by an enabling act of 
Congress would make it lawful for every fifth man in a ter- 



ritory, by combining-, to enslave the sixth, and keep him and 
his posterity in bondage forever. I believe in, and have al- 
ways been an advocate of "true" popular so vereig-nty, "the 
right of a majorit}' to rule (not enslave); that the clearly 
expressed will of a majority of the bona-fide electors of any 
leg-ally organized territory, on all proper subjects of human 
legislation, should be the law of said territory." 

But I cannot recognize that principle as Republican or 
Democratic that would concede the right of the majority to 
enslave the minority, merely because they were poor, or be- 
cause they were black, and without sufficient power to resist 
the wrong. To do so, would be to establish, as the policy of 
our government, the doctrine that might makes right. I 
cannot consent that by any enabling act of Congress, for 
which the whole people of the United States would be re- 
sponsible, the residents of any territory under our national 
jurisdiction, may, because they happen to be in the majority, 
subjugate even a few of its inhabitants and hold them under 
rules and regulations, or laws, if you choose to call them 
such, the most barbarous the world ever saw, to labor against 
their will, without compensation, and without hope for an 
end of their or their children's servitude but in the grave. 

The natural rights of the rich and the poor^ the learned 
and the ignorant, the strong and the feeble, of whatever 
country, caste, or religious belief, should be held sacred and 
inviolable by Republicans, because the right of a majority 
to enslave but one man — no matter who that man is — presup- 
poses the right to enslave all, without regard to race or color, 
who by fraud and force can be reduced to chattelhood. 

This kind of popular sovereignty would not be very 
agreeable to any of its present noisy advocates, if they or 
their friends were the persons upon whom its blessings were 
to operate. If any of them were reduced to slavery by a popr 
ular vote of any nation on the globe, the most solemn pro- 
tests and appeals would be made by each victim to the mere}'- 
of the enslavers, and to the God of heaven for deliverance ; 
just such appeals as can now be heard daily at the whipping- 
post on every plantation in the South. 

Suppose the Chinese nation, many of whose citizens we 
are enslaving under the disguise of the apprenticeship sys- 



— 26 — 

tern, should by a popular vote in any of their territories de- 
cide, even unanimously, to enslave some of these popular 
sovereig-nty doctors, if found in that empire ; and when those 
who were thus enslaved should appeal, as they doubtless 
would, to the head of that g-reat empire for protection ag-ainst 
such an outrag-e upon the natural rig-hts of man, what would 
3"ou think of the honor, or justice, or humanity of that ruler, 
if he should answer them in the lang-uag-e of their own g-reat 
popular sovereig-nty champion, Doug-las, only chang-ing- the 
word "black" to "white man," and say, " I cannot help you; 
individually I am very sorry for you, but it is a decree of 
heaven, as the difference in your org-anization and ours, your 
high foreheads and white skins clearly indicate that you are 
to be servants and ' hev,rers of wood and drawers of water,* 
and whether you are to be kept as slaves or not is left en- 
tirely with my people. I do not care whether slavery is 
voted up or voted down in any particular district or ter- 
ritory of my king-dom ; that is a matter which belong-s ex- 
clusively to the people of the several localities, and if a ma- 
jority agree that they want jovi or any other race for slaves, 
they will have them ; and wherever in my empire the soil, 
climate and productions make it the interest of m}^ people to 
use slave labor 'they will vote slavery up,' and wherever 
climate, soil and productions preclude the possibility of 
slave labor ' they will vote it down ; ' they are left per- 
fectly free to form and reg"ulate their own domestic in- 
stitutions in their own wa}^, subject onl}' to the supreme 
constitution. This is not a question between the China- 
man and the white man, but between the white man and 
the crocodile ; and as between the white man and the 
crocodile we go for the white man, but between the 
Chinaman and the white man, we go for the Chinaman. 
The Almighty has drawn a line through my empire, on one 
side «f which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor, on 
the other side by free labor. This slave line is not bounded 
by 36 degrees and 30 minutes, but in the sugar fields and rice 
plantations of the South, and " — 

[The remainder of this sentence in the fjreat popular sovereignty arg-ument of 
the emperor, like Senator Douglas's speech at Memphis, was unfortunately lost 
am4d the "noise and confusion" arising- from the applause of the admiring- Chiua- 
meu who surrounded the reporter, so that I am unable to give it to you.] 



— 27 



The emperor, however, continued by saying-, " It is with. 
me and my people a mere principle of dollars and cents. If 
it were not convenient and profitable to make slaves of you, 
we would not want you." 

But our popular sovereig-nty doctors would probably pro- 
test against the practical application of their doctrine, and 
claim that pirates had stolen them, that they were born free 
and above all were ' 'white, " and the Chinaman, to carry out the 
Douglas popular sovereig-nty theory to the letter, could reply as 
our Supreme Court and the slave democracy have done, by say- 
ing-, "that all men were originally born free, and by pirates 
were first stolen and sold into slavery, and it is agreed that 
all who first steal men are pirates, and punishable by the laws 
of nations with death ; yet the law regulating* the receipt of 
stolen goods and compelling- their return to their original 
owner does not apply in your case. When once sold jon are 
leg-ally the property of the purchaser. This trafftc has been 
sanctioned by the usag-es of my people for more than two 
hundred years, and our laws and constitution recognize the 
rig-ht of man to property in man, and although you now 
have no remedy but submission, yet, if we capture the pirates 
who brought j^ou here, we will try them and punish them, as 
our laws and treaties require, provided the juries in the locali- 
ties where we order the trials to take place find them g-uilty. 
But my people having once invested their money in this kind 
of property, it is guarded with peculiar care by the supreme 
government, and you must remain in servitude. This is a fun- 
damental principle of our democracy, ' to leave the people of 
this country perfectly free' to regulate their local institutions 
in their own way, and I learn with pleasure that it is the cor- 
ner-stone of the democracy in your country, where some of 
these same kind of pirates have recently landed several car- 
goes of free men, who were immediately sold to good and 
kind masters, as they all unite in assuring the world, and 
only from motives of humanity and for the purposes of chris- 
tianization. You will find that my people are governed ex- 
actly by the same benevolent principles, and I trust that their 
efforts under Providence will not be without good results in 
reclaiming you and your children from the heathen super- 
stitions of your country. As to you being 'white,' the 



28- 



court of last resort, the highest judicial tribunal known to 
our laws, has decided ' that white men have no rig"hts that 
Chinamen are bound to respect,' so that your being- whitij 
is only an argument against you, and would make no more dif- 
ference with my people, than it does with yours in America, 
as I find on examining many of your countrymen's newspapers, 
which contain advertisement after advertisement offering* 
' large rewards, for runaway slaves, dead or alive, and described 
as branded on the cheek, breast, legs and arms with a hot 
iron, in the shape of the initial letter of the owner's name, and 
badly scarred on the back with whipping, and so white that 
they would readily pass for white persons,' all of which 
would be, I regret to say, lamentably too true. For as Bige- 
low says, and sa.js truly, in this country 

' Slavery aint o' nary color, 

'Taint the hide that makes it wus, 

All it keers for in a feller, 

's just to make him fill its pus.' " 

This is a true and faithful exhibition of popular sover- 
eignty as advocated by the Douglas democracy, and is given 
in almost the exact words of their great champion in the 
foregoing Chinaman's argument, as a reference to Douglas's 
published speeches recently delivered at Memphis and New 
Orleans will show. I need not ask you if you are ready to 
abandon the principles and policy of the fathers, which are 
also the principles of the Republican part}^, and adopt such 
bogus democracy as this. I know you will not. You believe, 
all of us believe, that a truly democratic government will see 
to it that the poor and defenseless are protected against the 
aggressions of the rich and powerful, and that all their 
rights as individuals are carefully secured and guarded 
against any such abuse of " popular sovereignty " as that ad- 
vocated by those who say that " they do not care whether your 
rights or mine are voted up or voted down, or whether we are 
slaves or free," and are willing to concede, and not only to 
concede, but to put it in the power of those who desire it, and 
to encourage them to enslave, if they can, all the defenseless 



— 29 — 

in our territories, and to hold them in servitude in defiance 
of the principles of our national constitution. 

Ag-ainst such popular sovereig-nty I protest, you protest, 
and honest men everywhere protest. 

If this g-Qvernment was organized for any purpose, it was 
to secure the blessing's of liberty to ourselves and to our pos- 
terity, and not to enslave any man, nor to become the defend- 
ers of slaver3% It was a maxim of Gen. Jackson, and in his 
day a cardinal principle of democratic faith, that "the g"ov- 
ernment should be so administered as to secure the g-reatest 
g"ood to the g"reatest number, protecting- all, and granting- 
special favors to none." This doctrine is now reversed, and 
a privileg-ed class, who enslave the defenseless, are not only 
the special object and care of the g"overnment, but they con- 
trol the g-overnment as absolutely as if they were the only 
citizens of the republic. To meet and resist the ag-gressions 
of this privileged class, who, with the stolen garb of democ- 
racy, are striving to force slavery into all the States and 
Territories of the Union, and reopen and legalize the African 
slave trade, the Republican party was organized, and though 
side and immaterial issues, and the so-called doctrine of pop- 
ular sovereignty, may deceive and mislead the people for a 
time, these deceptions will all fail at last, and the cause of 
humanity and right shall triumph. 

And what ought to be said of those who, in a free land 
like ours, privileged to do right if they will, yet permit them- 
selves to be coerced by unprincipled leaders, and sacrifice 
their convictions of right and the better impulses of their 
hearts, to the despotism and tyranny of party, merely because 
it assumes to bear the sacred name of Democrat ? 

That the Republican party triumphed, in the late contest, 
in all the strongholds of the so-called Democracy, under the 
adverse influence of an alluring name, immense patronage, 
and all the resorts to frauds, falsehoods, ,and misrepresenta- 
tion, demonstrates to my satisfaction, the truth and power of 
our principles. 

Our success for the past two years is due in no small de- 
gree to the freedom-loving Germans. Let us not fail to ac- 
knowledge our indebtedness to them, and to thank them most • 
cordially for their invaluable aid, for without them we should 



Mo- 



have been defeated. Not only in this congressional district, 
but in States all over the country, this honest, sturdy, Saxon 
element is everywhere uniting" with us, and if we are but true 
to the cause of freedom they will remain with us. Had it not 
been for the charge of Know-Nothingism, which was so persist- 
en Jy and falsely made against us, by the very party which 
has to-day, and had then, nearly all the pro-Slavery Know- 
Nothing leaders secretly in its ranks, we should have number- 
ed with the Republican army in 1856 about the entire German 
element in the United States. They will be with us in 1860. 
They can be deceived with the name of democracy no 
longer. In all our large cities, in Chicago, St. Louis, Cin- 
cinnati, Milwaukee and Toledo, and indeed in nearly all the 
States, we owe our success to the German vote. It was in- 
deed a glorious sig-lit to see that solid old Saxon element 
showing its true independence, and uniting with us, as they 
did in Toledo, in rallying around the banner of liberty. It is 
a good omen for the future, and if we but remain true to 
them and to ourselves, and without compromise stand by our 
organization, and our gallant and true leaders, who in four suc- 
cessive cainpaigns, in nearly all the free States, have safely 
led us to battle and ';3 victory, there can be no such word as 
fail. Every pulsation of the popular heart gives us the as- 
surance that the shout of the awakening is at hand, that the 
day for the triumph of our cause dawns upon us, that the 
people in 1860 will arise in their majesty to hurl the present 
corrupt, extravagant and sectional administration from 
power, and place a tried and true statesman of the national 
Republican party in the presidential chair. 



ADDRKSS 

DELIVERED IN GERMAN TOWNSHIP, FULTON 
COUNTY, OHIO. 



On Tuesday last, November 1, 1859, a larg-e meeting- of 
the Republicans of German township, Fulton Co., Ohio, was 
held at Archbold villag-e, at which a banner was presented 
to the Republicans of that township in honor of their first 
victory over the Democracy, achieved at the late election. The 
banner was of white satin, upon which was the following" 
inscription in g"old and colors : 

"From the Republican Mothers and Daug-hters of Fulton 
county to the Republicans of German township." "We 
greet you as brothers." 

"In commemoration of the glorious victory of 1859.'^ 

On the reverse — top and sides — " Fraternity," "Liberty," 
"Equality." The filling in— "Where Liberty dwells, there 
is my Countr}'." "Free Homes for Free People." "Lands 
to the Landless." "Protection to Foreign-born Citizens 
abroad." 

After the presentation was made a resolution was passed 
complimenting Hon. J. M. Ashley, eliciting from him in 
reply the following remarks, which we find in the Wauseon 
Republican : 

Mr. Pre;sident and Ladies and Genti^emen : It is 
not my purpose to detain you long, for I come not so much to 
make a speech this afternoon as to be a listener, and to enjoy 
a social hour with friends who are convened to celebrate an 
event that should make glad the heart of every free man. 
For your compliments, and the manner in which you have 
been pleased to express your appreciation :of my humble ef- 
forts for the cause, I return you my sincere thanks. And 
permit me to express the hope that no act or vote of mine in 
the new and untried field of labor to which you have com- 

(31) 



— 32 — 

missioned me, and to which in a few days I must repair, will 
ever cause any of my fellow-citizens to regret that their 
suffrag-es were bestowed upon me. 

The victory we have assembled to celebrate, my fellow- 
citizens, is not a victory for any one man, or a number of 
men, but a victor}^ for principle, a victor}- for humanity, 
for rig-ht, for truth, for justice. It is indeed a g-lorious 
victory, the effects of which will soon be visible at the slave- 
holding- capital of the Republic, where Ohio will ag-ain be 
represented in the Senate of the United States by a senator 
true to freedom. This is a consummation over which we 
may properly express our g-ratitude, and exchang-e cong-ratu- 
lations, and to no township, of the same number of inhab- 
itants, in the State, are we more deeply indebted for our 
triumph in Ohio this fall, than to German township in Fulton 
county. And I express to you, but imperfectly, the joy the 
Republicans of Lucas feel, especially the German Republi- 
cans of Toledo, at the redemption of German township from 
the control of a spurious and false democracy. You fought 
the battle well and g-allantly, and the beautiful banner just 
presented to you by the fair daughters of Fulton county, tells 
you better than I can tell you, of the hig-h esteem and regard 
in which you are held by those who, with you, are battling* 
earnestly for the rights of man and the liberty and enfran- 
chisement of the human race. I have faith that you will 
take no step backward, that you will stand firmly by the 
principles of freedom, and annually carry to the ballot-box 
the time-honored Democratic-Republican principle emblaz- 
oned upon the folds of your banner. 

To you, my German fellow-citizens, the Republican 
party is under deep obligations for its past success. To you 
it looks with confidence for aid in the great battle of 1860. 
With gratitude we acknowledge its indebtedness to you, 
not only here in German township, but all over the country. 

Everywhere the freedom-loving Germans are joining our 
ranks, and if, as a party, we are faithful to the constitution 
and the Union, and true to the doctrines of human brother- 
hood, they will remain with us. Had it not been for the 
charge of Know-Nothingism which has been so persistent!}- 
and falsely made against us, by the very party which from the 



first has had nearly all the pro-Slavery Know-Nothing- leaders 
secretly in its ranks, almost every German elector in the United 
States vt^ould have been with us to-day. As it is, they will be 
with us in 1860, and, like brothers standing- shoulder to shoulder 
on the Republican platform, will rally around the banner of 
liberty, and our cause shall triumph. Let no friend of hu- 
manity doubt it, for the principles and doctrines of the Re- 
publican party are such as to commend them to the judge- 
ments and hearts of the friends of liberty and justice every- 
where, especially to the poor of every nation, who are seeking- 
homes in this land of ours. The Republican party is op- 
posed to the proscription of any man, whatever his nation- 
ality or relig-ion ; opposed to a strong- centralized g-overnment 
in the hands of an aristocratic privileg-ed class ; opposed to 
fraud and corruption in the administration of the g-overn- 
ment, to an irresponsible g-overnment bank, to issuing- mil- 
lions of shinplasters for the purpose of carrying- on the g-ov- 
ernment in a time of profound peace, to borrowing- money 
every year for the office-holders, and creating- a national 
debt for posterity to pay ; opposed to making- war upon weak 
and defenseless neig-hboring- nations for the purpose of 
robbing- them of their territories over which to extend the 
blig-ht of human slavery ; opposed to the f ug-itive slave bill, 
to the reopening- of the African slave trade, or to permitting- 
slavery to g-ointo and occupy our national territories to the ex- 
clusion of the laboring- white man ; opposed to selling- the public 
lands to speculators, or permitting- them to g-o into the hands 
of any person but actual settlers ; opposed to an increase of 
the rates of letter and newspaper postag-e ; opposed, as 
Washing-ton was, to a larg-e standing- army in time of peace, 
believing- it to be dang-erous to the liberties of a free peo- 
ple ; opposed to importing- from Europe anything- which we 
can manufacture as well and as cheaply at home ; opposed 
to g-oing- to Eng-land to buy rails for our g-reat network of 
western railroads, when we can make them as well and 
better from the iron mountains of Pennsylvania, where 
forg-es and furnaces, which are now idle and still, and im- 
mense beds of coal and iron ore and forests of timber, await 
but the touch of the American artisan and American la- 
3 



— 34 



borer to put down every bar of railroad iron we need at our 
doors ; and finally opposed to the passag-e of all laws, either 
by the leg-islatures of the several States, or by Cong-ress, 
granting- privileg^es to the few which are denied to the many. 
These are some of the points in which, as a party, we stand 
in direct antag-onism to the present national administration, 
and to those who placed it in power. But the Republican 
party is not, as has been charg^ed by our opponents, merely 
a party of negatives. It stands forth and boldly proclaims 
to the world, not only its hostility to the wrongs and cor- 
ruptions of the slave democracy, but in the lang-uage of 
General Jackson, declares that it is in favor of a "plain 

AND SIMPLE GOVERNMENT, DEVOID OF POMP, PROTECTING 
AEIy AND GRANTING SPECIAL FAVORS TO NONE," and that its 

first desire is to see the g-overnment so administered that 
"Like the dews of heaven, its blessings shall fall upon the 
rich and poor, the north and south alike." For this purpose 
was the Republican party organized, and on this platform 
it proposes to fig"ht every battle ; it therefore favors from 
necessity, as well as from choice, peace with all nations and 
the full protection not only of the American-born citizen, but 
of the rights of the naturalized citizen, both at home and 
abroad ; favors the improvement of our g-reat inland seas and 
western rivers and harbors, to protect and build up our g^row- 
ing" commerce ; favors the readjustment of our revenue laws, 
so that money enough shall be collected for the use of an 
economical administration of the g-overnment, without issu- 
ing treasury notes or borrowing a dollar, and at the same 
time adopt such a scale of duties as shall afford ample en- 
courag-ement to our manufacturing-, commercial and farming- 
interests, thereby restoring- confidence, and by a proper divi- 
sion of labor bring-ing- activity to every f org-.e and furnace that 
is now lying- idle and still in the coal and iron districts of 
Pennsylvania, and renewing- the hum of the spindle and shut- 
tle at every waterfall among- the cotton and woolen factories 
of New England ; thus creating- a home demand for our bread- 
stuff and produce, and infusing- new life and new energy into 
every department of industry ; keeping- our g-old and silver at 
home, instead of sending- it to Europe as now to- buy our iron 
v/hen we have iron mountains at our doors, to buy cotton 



— 35 — 

gfoods when we supply the world with raw material, to buy 
our cloth and woolen g-oods, when we can grow wool enough to 
clothe half the world. It also favors the prohibition of slavery 
in all the national territories, and more stringent laws to 
suppress not only the African slave trade but the enslavement 
of Chinese coolies, or any other race of men, under whatever 
form of pretense the attempt may be made ; favors the repeal 
of the infamous fugitive slave act, and leaves the rendition of 
fugitives from Service; and Justice; where the constitution 
leaves it, with the governors and legislatures of the several 
States ; favors the withdrawal of the public lands from sale, 
and dividing them into farms of 160 acres each for the free 
use of actual occupants ; favors such an administration of the 
g-overnment that in a time of profound peace they shall keep 
their expenditures within the limits of the money raised from 
the duties on imports, and not borrow or issue millions of 
paper money, as this administration has done, to carry on the 
government ; favors cheap letter and newspaper postage so as 
to encourage the frequent interchange of thought and intel- 
ligence among the people ; favors the election of all of&cers 
(so far as practicable) by the people, and the withdrawal 
from the President of the dangerous appointing power now in 
his hands ; favors a small standing army and navy and a more 
rigid economy in their management ; and last, though not 
least, it is for a Nationai. Administration Favorabi.b to 
National, Freiedom. And this we shall have in 1S60, if as a 
party we are true to ourselves and our principles. 

The battle just fought and won is but a skirmish on the 
outposts. The great battle is to come, when we are to meet 
and dislodge from their fortresses a well-trained and well-dis- 
ciplined army, who have long" been in possession of the gov- 
ernment, and who will light desperately to maintain it. See 
to it, my friends, that the little army in this township, which 
so gloriously triumphed in October, shall have no traitor or 
deserter from that banner and its principles in the coming 
contest. Long may this joyous occasion and the month of 
October, 1859, be remembered, as it should be remembered, 
with gratitude to the Giver of every good ; for October is a 
glorious month, and there ought always to be joy and thanks- 
giving at its annual return, joy for its fruits and golden grain. 



36 



It is the most beautiful, because the most mature month of 
all the twelve, and has rigfhtly been called the golden month. 
It comes to us every year with its gorgeous robes of crimson 
and gold, and flying colors of russet-tinted leaves and au- 
tumnal flowers to make glad the heart of man, and v/e who are 
gathered here on this occasion, and all who sympathize with 
us, have added to our joy the happiness which this October 
brings to the people of Ohio, because of the verdict we have 
just rendered at the ballot-box for freedom ; and not only in 
Ohio and in this county and township, but all over the coun- 
try the month of October, 1859, will bring hope and encour- 
agement to those who are struggling for their rights, and 
make it an ever-memorable year for its victories in favor of 
the principles of our National Independence. 

From Pennsylvania there comes greeting to us, the wel- 
come shoutings of her sturdy sons for the triumph they have 
achieved over a faithless President from their own State. 
From Iowa there comes back the echoing response of another 
victory, and from Minnesota, the young "North Star State," 
there comes also the rejoicing of a free people for their first 
undisputed Republican triumph. Ohio sends back the greet- 
ing of a full and complete victory, and gives to the friends of 
freedom everywhere the assurance that she is well prepared 
for the great battle of 1860. On her banner she has inscribed 
the glorious motto of "Liberty, Union, Justice," and she 
proposes to join her sister States in carrying it to the capital 
of the Republic, believing that its triumphant entry into the 
capital of the nation will give an impetus to freedom and 
free principles wherever a slave toils beneath the lash of a 
taskmaster or a tyrant tramples on the rights of a fellow-man. 

" Right onward, oh, speed it. Wherever the blood 
Of the wrong'd and the sinless is crying to God, 
Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining. 
Wherever the lash of the driver is twining, 
Wherever from kindred torn rudely apart 
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart, 
Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind 
In silence and darkness the God-given mind, 



— 37 — 

There, God speed it onward. Its truth will be felt — 
The bonds shall be loosen'd— the iron shall melt. 

"And you, bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true, 
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due. 
Whose fathers of old sang" in concert with mine. 
On the banks of Swatera, the song" of the Rhine ; 
The pure German pilgrim, who first dared to brave 
The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave, 
Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South 
One brow for the band — for the padlock one mouth ? 
You, bow down to tyrants — you rivet the chain 
Which your fathers smote off on the poor slave again ? 

*' No, Never ; one voice like the sound in the cloud, 
When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud, 
Wherever the foot of a freeman hath pressed, 
From the Delaware marge to the lakes of the West, 
On the south-going breezes shall deepen and grow 
Till the land that it sweeps o'er shall trenlble below. 
']phe voice of a People — uprisen — awake ; 
Human rights for their watchword when freedom's at 

stake. 
Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from each 

height, 
Our Country and Liberty ; God for the Right." 



ADDRKSS 

DELIVERED OCTOBER 14, 1860. 



The following- is the address of Hon. J. M. Ashley, at 
the Wig-warn in Toledo last night [October 14, 1860] , on the 
occasion of the Republican jollification over the recent vic- 
tories in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. 

FelIvOW-Citizens : With pleasure I respond to your call, 
and announce that the Republican cause has ag-ain tri- 
umphed in this county, in this cong-ressional district, and in 
the State. [Cheers.] It is fitting- and proper that so g-lorious 
a victory should be commemorated by blazing- bonfires, torch- 
lig-ht processions and illuminations. On every political battle- 
field where free speech and a free press are tolerated, and our 
opponents have been met, they are vanquished and we »are 
triumphant. [Applause.] 

From the pine-clad hills of Maine to the home of the 
' gallant Blair, on the banks of the Mississippi, in the free-soil 
city of St. Louis, from the g-reen hills of Vermont to the Ter- 
ritory of Nebraska, from the g-ood old Keystone State (God 
bless her for her 30,000 majorit}^), [Cheers for Pennsylvania] 
from our neig-hbor Indiana, just redeemed from the rule of a 
false democracy who fastened upon the country bogus United 
State Senators, and from all over our own broad and beloved 
commonwealth, the shouting- of millions of freemen g-reet 
us to-night with the welcome tidings of glorious victories 
won. The revolution precipitated upon the country in 1854 
by the madness of our opponents will be complete in Novem- 
ber, and we shall witness the realization of our long-cherished 
hopes — the inauguration of a true democracy in the land of 
Washington. We shall see the national government in 
the hands of men pledged to administer it as our fathers 
administered it, so that in every State and Territory within 

(38) 



39 — 



the limits of the Republic the rig-hts of man shall be re- 
spected and protected by law. [Cheers.] 

Since the org-anization of the Republican party I have 
contemplated this promised day with rapture. To see it has 
been my hope and prayer. That hope and prayer have buoyed 
me up in the darkest hours, when disaster and defeat have 
overwhelmed us, and when the battle seemed lost, as men es- 
timate results who do not comprehend the g-reat truth that no 
power can make oppression just, or eradicate from the heart 
of man the love of liberty ; that wrong- cannot be made rig-ht 
by the verdict of a majority, and that the leg-ally constituted 
authority of no g-overnment on earth may lawfully take away, 
from an}' race, the rig-hts with which their Creator invested 
them. [Cheers.] They have made me firm and unfaltering- 
when many men have g-iven up in despair, and when the 
doubting-, the spoils-hunters and the camp-followers have 
found shelter (as some have here) in the ranks of the enemy ; 
when we have been betrayed by pretended friends, and our 
most g-enerous efforts for humanity have been wilfully mis- 
represented, and the characters of our leaders defamed with 
unbecoming- mendacity by our opponents. 

My faith has g-rown strong-er and strong-er with every 
contest, for I have alwaj'-s believed that in the g-reat battle of 
life we g-ained new streng-th at every step by overcoming- ob- 
stacles that beset our path. I believed that liberty could not 
be crushed out in this ag-e and country ; that truth and all the 
moral forces of nature were ever working- on the side of rig-ht, 
and that disasters and defeats were necessary to test the con- 
stancy and courag-e of our men. And I now know, as I then 
believed, that all the trials throug-h which as men and as party 
we have passed, have been for the best ; for our ranks are more 
than filled up with g-ood men and true, to supply the desertions 
of the weak and the venal, and to-nig-ht the voices of the 
timid and the doubting- are silenced by the triumphant shouts 
of the new recruits, who, with us, are pushing- on to victory. 
[Applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, when the conspirators who abrog-ated 
the Missouri anti-slavery restriction, and rejected Kansas 
because she knocked at the door for admission into the Union 
as a free State, triumphed over the people in 1856, many g-ood 



— 40- 



men gave up. Senator Seward said the other day in Chicago, 
that Horace Mann, one of the noblest and best of men, once 
said to him, that he "despaired of the cause of humanit}' after 
the passage of the slavery laws of 1850," and I know from a 
conversation I once had with Mr. Mann on that subject in 
this city, when he was here lecturing before our Young Men's 
Association, that that was the principal cause of his retiring 
from public life, leaving Massachusetts and accepting the 
Presidency of Antioch college, at Yellow Springs, in this 
State. I confess that I heard this declaration from so great 
a man with sorrow, but I never despaired, and trust I never 
shall despair, of the cause of humanity either in America or 
Kurope. [Cheers.] Instead of despairing, I rejoiced rather 
when the madness of the slave barons drove them to break 
down the Missouri compromise, and to attempt to force slavery 
not only up^n Kansas, but, by action of the government, and 
a decree of the Supreme Court to make it national throughout 
the Republic, because I believed that nothing would more 
surely arouse the people to the dangers that threatened them. 
Had I been your representative in Congress then, I would 
not only have voted against these measures, but protested 
against them also, as I did as a citizen at the time of their 
enactment. I would not do wrong- that good might come ; 
but I believe that Providence now often permits bad men to 
scourge a nation for good and wise purposes, as He permitted 
Pharaoh of old to harden his heart so that he refused to let 
the oppressed children of Israel go. 

I believe that these crimes of the so-called Democratic 
party were necessary, in order to arouse the American people 
from their supineness and lethargy. But for those crimes 
there would have been no Republican party in the United States 
to-day. 

Horace Mann, however, was not the only leading man 
who has despaired of our cause. I could name more than a 
score. Only last week, one of the best and truest men in thia 
district said to me: "Ashley, we have been working seven 
years for this cause with so little success that I am becoming 
disheartened, and if we fail to elect Lincoln I shall quit." I 
replied that I regretted to hear him say so, and reminded him 
of the 4,000 opposition majority we had to overcome in this 



— 41 — 

congressional district, that the National and State g-overn- 
ments, with all their patronag-e, and every county here in the 
Northwest, were in the hands of our political opponents in 
1853, when we first met together to org-anize a new party 
with all those who, in the old Democratic and Whig- and Free 
Soil parties, would unite with us on a platform such as the 
Republican party now stands upon. I reminded him of the 
certainty of always having- in every party, as in every church, 
faithless and untrue men, and the misfortune of always hav- 
ing- indiscreet friends also ; and I said to him, as I say to you 
to-nig-ht, that I grow more hopeful with every contest, and 
that as a party we are far stronger now than my most sanguine 
hopes led me to believe we should be when, seven years ago, 
we commenced the battle, for then I thought it would require 
a struggle of ten or fifteen years before we should be as 
strong as we are to-day. 

I have always been guided in my political action by a 
simple rule, a rule which has taught me to confide in the in- 
telligence of the people and their innate sense of justice. 
This, with a firm reliance in the living energy of truth, has 
given me courage when success seemed far off, and I have 
worked on because it has cheered me when overwhelmed by dis- 
aster and defeat. Of what I have done to aid in organizing the 
Republican party and to cause its success, not only in this 
district and State, but elsewhere, I will not speak. I leave 
that for others who will do it more impartially for me when 
party passions shall have subsided and local rivalries shall 
have been, as they will be, forgotten. I am "and always have 
been content to do my duty and to forget and forgive the er- 
rors and prejudices of the hour. 

To my fellow-citizens, not only here, but all over the dis- 
trict, I feel grateful for their generous support, and the re- 
newed expression of their confidence as shown by the increased 
majority they have given me, and I trust that no act or vote 
of mine will ever cause any man to regret that his vote was 
bestowed upon me. 

I told you last year that the battle we were then fighting 
was "but a skirmish on the outposts." The victories just 
gained leave but few outposts in the free States in the hands 



— 42 — 

of the enemy. When they are taken, as they will be, the 
citadel must surrender. [Cheers,] 

And though we owe much for our past and present suc- 
cess to all classes, especially to our German and adopted citi- 
zens, to no organization are we more deeply indebted for our 
present triumph, than to the Wide-awakes all over the land. 
Their promptness, their fidelity to our cause, their fine mili- 
tary drill, their presence at all our meetings, has lent g-ood 
cheer and kindled an enthusiasm in the hearts of old and young, 
unlike any organization that has preceded it. Wherever I have 
gone, I have met ' ' around the blazing camp-fires " of the Wide- 
awakes, and found fresh cause for rejoicing and hope in the 
fact that the young men, with their generous and noble im- 
pulses, everywhere swelled our ranks ; these with other 
classes of citizens make an army for freedom which you see 
is invincible. [Cheers.] 

This victorious army, pledged to the defense of constitu- 
tional liberty and to the bringing back of the government to 
the principles and policy of its founders, is advancing with 
firm and steady tread to take possession of the national 
capital, and 

' ' Beneath thy skies, November, 
Thy skies of cold and rain, 
Around our blazing camp-fires 
We'll close our ranks again. 

For, God be praised. New England 

Takes once more her ancient place ; 

Again the Pilgrim's banner 

Leads the vanguard of the race. 

Along the Susquehanna, 

A shout of triumph breaks — 
The Keystone State is speaking 

From the Ocean to the Lakes. 

The Northern hills are blazing. 

The Northern skies are bright, 



— 43 — 

And the fair young* West is turning- 
Her forehead to the light. 

Then, Brothers, close up nearer, 
Press hard the hostile towers, 

For another Balaklava 

And the MalakhofE is ours." 



SPKKCH 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO. 



Dei,ivered in th:b U. S. House of Rejpresentatives, 
May 29, 1860. 



The House "being- in tlie Committee of the Whole on the 
State of the Union — 

Mr. Ashley said : 

Mk. Chairman : Respect for leg-islative, executive, and 
judicial authority is a peculiar characteristic of the constit- 
uency I have the honor to represent. Indeed, respect for all 
constitutional oblig-ations, and for the laws passed in pursu- 
ance of the Constitution, as well as for all authoritative 
judicial decisions, may with propriety be said to be a leading" 
trait in the character of the American people. Especially is 
this respect habitual, with the g-reat body of the people of the 
free States. 

Trained in the school of loyalty, taug-ht to venerate the 
teaching-s of the fathers, and g-uided in their daily walk and 
in all their public and private intercourse with their fellow- 
Letter from Bishop H. M, Turner, D. D., LL. D., Atlanta, Ga. 
This was Mr. Ashley's first speech in Congress. It was an exhaustive and able 
appeal for the unconditional emancipation of the negro. In this speech and in the two 
following' speeches his arraignment of the Supreme Court for the " Dred Scott" 
and other pro-slavery decisions, has never been answered. In a majority of Mr. 
Ashley's congressional and platform speeches will be found arguments for an ideal 
republic, such as the great men who achieved our independence contemplated, when 
they organized our National Government, and gave us a written Constitution. Uni- 
formly there is blended with his appeals, the historical with the philosophical. These 
speeches are all characterized for their frankness and fidelity to the black man, and 
for their fairness to the Southern people. Every reader will be fascinated with their 
sincerity and clearness of thought, their marvelous political knowledge, and be 
charmed with their simple dignity and unaffected eloquence. H. M. Turner. 

(44) 



— 45- 

men, by the stern principles of tliat wise Christian morality 
which has made New Eng-land at once the hope and g"lory of 
our country, it could not be that the citizens educated within 
her jurisdiction, and the States founded by her wisdom and 
enterprise, should be otherwise than loyal to the Constitution 
and the Union. Asking" for themselves nothing- that they 
would not concede to the humblest, they make the community 
of interests identical, and the loyalty of every inhabitant of 
the State a necessit3^ 

This g-rand consummation has been practically achieved 
in eighteen States of the American Union. The system of 
g-overnment adopted by them, in my judgment, is the best 
system known to man. It is the best, because it rests upon 
labor, and is created and controlled by the free and untram- 
meled will of the laborer. It is the best, because experience 
has demonstrated that it is the only foundation upon which 
States and g"overnments can safely and securely rest. In 
such a g-overnment, the laborers must not only be free, but 
they must be citizens ; having- rights which the g-overnment 
and all classes of citizens are bound to respect and defend — 
the poorest and humblest inhabitant being equal, before the 
law, with the richest and most powerful ; sharing- in its 
burdens, enjoying- its protection, and feeling- individually 
responsible for its g-ood or bad manag-ement. This theory is 
daily growing- stronger and stronger among- all civilized 
nations ; and the wori.d is beginning to understand that 

INJURING ONE Cl^ASS FOR THE IMMEDIATE BENEFIT OF ANOTHER, 
IS ULTIMATELY INJURIOUS TO THAT OTHER ; AND THAT, TO 
SECURE PROSPERITY TO A COMMUNITY, ALL INTERESTS MUST BE 

CONSULTED. This truly Republican idea of consulting- the 
interests and obeying- the wishes and wants of the people, 
was recently acquiesced in, to an extent before unknown, b}^ 
the leading Powers of Europe, when they recog-nized the 
rig-ht of the people of the Roman States to declare, by bal- 
lot, whether they desired separate Governments, or a united 
Italy, with Victor Emanuel as their chief. The state of 
society necessary to form such g-overnments, as we have in 
eig-hteen States of this Union, can only be secured where an 
untrammeled press and free speech are guaranteed, and 
public schools and a free church are secured to every inhabitant 



46 — 



in the Commonwealth. These institutions the free States 
have, to an extent unknown to any g-overnment or people on 
earth ; and to them, more than to any other cause, are these 
States indebted for their unsurpassed development, and for 
that prosperity and g^rowth which have made them the won- 
der and admiration of the world. It is impossible that such a 
people, living- under such g-overnments, as are secured by the 
laws and Constitutions of the free States, no matter what their 
former nationality may have been, should be otherwise than 
loyal citizens, or that they should be otherwise than the 
firmest defenders of the principles which lie at the founda- 
tion of these States, and the jealous g-uardians of that Con- 
stitution and Union which our fathers ordained, to secure 
and perpetuate these blessing's. 

In fifteen States of the American Union, practically, the 
reverse of all this is true. The exceptions are only in a few 
of the border counties of slave States, adjoining- the free 
States, and in three or four cities whose commercial inter- 
course is extensive in the North. In all these fifteen slave 
States, a class is dominant which fills all the offices, and con- 
trols the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of 
the g-overnment. They do not pretend to be loyal to the 
national Constitution, or obedient to the laws passed in pur- 
suance thereof, but claim that their first and highest alle- 
g-iance is due to their several State g-overnments and their 
institution of human slavery. They care nothing- for the 
Union, except so far as it subserves their purposes of build- 
ing up, and extending their peculiar institution, and per- 
petuating their own political power. They trample upon all 
treaties, compacts, and compromises, if they stand in their 
way to universal domination on this continent, and neither 
respect nor obey any law or judicial decision that does not 
sustain their imperious demands for special leg-islation and 
protection. 

Trained in the disunion school of Calhoun, they reject 
not only the teachings of the fathers, but the doctrines of 
that Christianity which enjoins upon all, whether as indi- 
viduals, communities, or States, the duty of doing- unto the 
least and weakest as they would that others should do unto 
them. Hence in all the slave States the constitutional rig-hts 



-47- 



of an American citizen are not respected, the constitutional 
g-uaranty for free speech and a free press is a mockery, free 
schools and an enlig-htened Christianity an impossibility. 
The laws to suppress the slave trade are openly disreg-arded, 
and violence and mob law reig-n supreme. The laborers upon 
whose toil these States exist are slaves, and have been 
declared not to be citizens, thoug-h born upon the soil, but 
simply persons, with no moral, social, or natural rig-hts, that 
the dominant race are bound to respect, if the mere ipse dixit 
of the Supreme Court is to be regarded as law. Their 
obedience and subjug-ation are secured by enactments and 
usag-es the most barbarous and tj-rannical ever known to 
man. A reig-n of terror secures the obedience and co-opera- 
tion of the poor whites ; and because of this submission, 
they are claimed as loyal friends of the institution of slavery. 
But their loyalty is, in fact, a humiliating- submission to the 
privileg-ed class — a submission as abject in most of these 
fifteen States, as is the submission of the most spirit-humbled 
slave. The g-uaranties of the national Constitution, so far 
as they affect the individual rig-hts of an American citizen, 
are denied alike to all men who are not of this privileg-ed 
class or their open allies ; and to be an American citizen 
secures no protection from insult and outrag-e, unjust im- 
prisonment and terrible punishments, or even death. So 
complete is this reig-n of terror, that no man can print, or 
speak, or preach, or pray, unless he does it in the manner 
prescribed by this privileg-ed class. These two forms of 
g-overnment and societ}^ are the antipodes of each other, and 
cannot coexist and peacefully endure. There must, of neces- 
sity, be serious conflicts and constant strug-g-les for the 
ascendency ; and, eventually, the one must g-ive way to the 
other. There is, then, an "irrepressible conflict," as the 
disting-uished Senator from New York has said, between the 
two forces or forms of g-overnment and society ; and it will 
continue until , freedom or slavery shall have complete 
dominion in every department of the g-overnment. 

This privileg-ed class, with Calhoun and his political 
disciples, ha,ve had, with the exception of one or two short 
intervals, almost complete possession of every department of 
the national g-overnment for the past twenty years. Taking- 



•48 — 



advantag-e of the well-known loyalty of the people of the 
free States to the Constitution and the Union, and their 
habitual respect for all laws and decisions of the Judicial 
department of the National and State Governments, they have, 
by threatening- to dissolve the Union, and by appeals made 
in the sacred name of Democracy, secured the co-operation 
and aid of thousands of patriotic citizens in the free States 
who are conscientiously opposed to the institution of slavery. 
They have thus been enabled to obtain and keep possession 
of every department of the g-overnment, and so to shape its 
leg-islative, executive, and judicial action, as to foster, build 
up, and extend, this monstrous wrong- of human slavery, and 
make it a National instead of a State and local institution, if 
the Dred Scott decision is to be taken and held, as the Presi- 
dent and his party declare it is, the correct interpretation of 
the Constitution. 

I propose, Mr. Chairman, to show the House and country 
how one department of the g-overnment has been taken 
possession of by this privileg-ed class — I mean the Supreme 
Judiciar3\ I propose to show that, while they have been 
preaching- concessions and compromises to us, they have for 
years been secretly and cautiously at work to obtain complete 
control of this important, as well as most dangerous, depart- 
ment of the National Government. That this department of 
the g-overnment is dang-erous, I think the history of its 
usurpations since its org-anization will show. 

The opinions of some of the ablest men of the Revolu- 
tion — many of whom opposed the org-anization of this court 
with the powers g-ranted to it, and predicted with sing-ular 
foresig-ht the dang-ers to which the rig-hts of citizens and 
States would be exposed if it was established — have been 
more than realized. It would have been well for the present 
and future of our country if the admonitions of those who 
opposed the org-anization of this department of the g-overn- 
ment with its immense power had been reg-arded with 
more favor. It were well even now for our future peace if the 
warning-s of Jefferson, Mason, Henry, Franklin, Grayson, 
and other disting-uished men would be heeded. But, alas for 
freedom ! their admonitions and warning-s have not only 
been unheeded, but the scheme of a sectional and privileg-ed 



— 49 — 

class, aided by Northern Representatives, has been accom- 
plished so far as to secure complete control of this depart- 
ment of the g-overnment ; and they now demand of the party, 
whose every movement they imperiously dictate, a chang-e 
in their action and tone towards this Judicial department. 
In compliance with this demand, we find that the party to- 
day, which for years so vehemently denounced the usurpa- 
tions of this court and opposed and disregarded its decisions, 
have come to reg-ard it (if the declaration of their Presidents 
and Representatives and party conventions are to be credited) 
as the most "august tribunai." in the world — a tribunal 
whose opinions are infallible, from whose judgment there 
is no appeal, and before whose decisions and political decrees, 
citizens and parties, and even free States, are required to 
bow. On failure to acquiesce in this claim of prerogative, 
the Representatives of free States are denounced on this floor 
by the leaders of this privileg-ed class as traitors to the gov- 
ernment, and as perjurers, who have sworn to support a Con- 
stitution they intend to violate. 

And here let me ask what there is in this tribunal, com- 
posed as it is of but nine men, that should entitle it, as a 
political authority, to the veneration and unquestioned obedi- 
ence claimed for it by the present Administration party, any 
more than the same number of Senators and Representa- 
tives that might with ease be selected as gentlemen possess- 
ing at least equal, if not superior, legal and natural abilities? 
Is there anything in the character of these judges, in their 
services to the country, in their learning or qualifications as 
lawyers, that should entitle them to the appellation of an 
"august tribunal?" Is it not a fact well known to everyone, 
that so far from this court being composed of men of 
superior abilities, or of the ablest lawyers in the country, a 
majority of them were partisans, and that they were selected 
because of their partisanship when placed upon the bench? 
It is certainly a fact not unknown to the House and the coun- 
try, that men of greater legal abilities, whose nomination had 
been submitted to the Senate for confirmation, have been re- 
jected. The Committee on the Judiciary (a majority of which 
has been pro-slavery for the past twenty years), to which said 
4 



— 50 — 

nominations are always referred, have, by some means 
unknown to the public, succeeded in prevailing- on the acting- 
President, whoever he may have been, to withdraw objec- 
tionable nominations, and substitute others more acceptable 
for the purposes contemplated by them, while some of the 
present partisans of this court were confirmed, instead of 
those whose names were thus withdrawn or rejected. Before 
I take my seat, I expect to show that a purpose was to be 
accomplished by those who secured the rejection, on a direct 
vote for confirmation in the Senate, of men of spotless 
characters, of great learning-, and eminent judicial abilities, 
or their defeat by the withdrawal of their names by the 
President, at the dictation of this class interest. Debate 
was sought to be avoided on this delicate point, that their 
ulterior purposes might thus remain undiscovered, even in 
the secret archives of the United States Senate. Sir, if the 
country could understand how a majority of these judges 
were placed upon the bench, and the schemes resorted to by 
this class interest to secure men to represent their views and 
interests, the people would scorn their political decrees, and 
treat their usurpations as they deserve. 

Sir, I expect to show that no men whose nominations have 
been submitted to the Senate for confirmation as judges of 
this court were rejected for want of learning, character, or 
ability as lawyers, but solely because of their known or sup- 
posed unsoundness on the question of slavery; all men known 
to entertain liberal views on that question were rejected, and 
partisans destitute of eminence or fitness confirmed in 
their stead, because of their known or supposed reliability in 
sustaining the claims of the slave barons in their judicial 
decisions. Such is the extent to which this scheme has been 
carried — and, I regret to say, successfully carried — by the 
carelessness, or incompetency, or criminal complicity, of 
Northern Senators, some of whom have had Southern planta- 
tions well stocked with slaves, while claiming to represent a 
free people. I say, but for the indifference or inability of 
Northern Senators to defend and guard the interests of those 
they were commissioned to represent, or their criminal com- 
plicity, this scheme never could have been accomplished as it 
has been ; for it required the votes of Northern Senators to 



51 



do it, and by their action or indifference this court, which in 
former years stood so high in the estimation of the Ameri- 
can people, is now looked upon by the great body of citizens 
with distrust, and regarded by many of the best men of the 
nation as little else than a partisan political tribunal. 

Mr. Chairman, it is no pleasant task for an American 
Representative to declare on this floor, and to the country, 
as I now do, and as candor compels me to do, that I have 
lost all confidence in, and veneration for, this Supreme 
Court ; and I could wish that even before the expiration of 
the next Presidential term I could see this Supreme Court 
reorganized. I wish I could see all laws repealed creating 
inferior United States District Courts, so that we might be 
able to get rid of the whole batch of these United States 
judicial of&cials as summarily as the Republican party under 
Jefferson got rid of the swarm of district judges created by 
what is familiarly known as the midnight judiciary act, 
passed on the night of the 3d of March, 1801. For while we 
cannot deprive .these of&cials of their life tenures or titles by 
removal, it is an established principle in the National as well 
as in the State Governments — and the act under Jefferson to 
which I have referred is one of the earliest precedents on record 
establishing the right of the power that created an^ pre- 
scribed the duties of these courts-— to repeal the law, and 
thus legislate these judges and clerks out of ofiB.ce by the 
power that breathed into them the breath of life. After a 
full investigation of this subject, I believe the only practical 
way, without a change in the Constitution, to reform the 
gross abuses, not only of the Supreme Court, but of the 
United States District Courts, is : First, to reorganize the 
Supreme Court, and either create additional judges, or 
redistrict the circuits in such a manner as to equalize the 
business, and require the judges to be residents of the dis- 
tricts for which they were respectively appointed, or in which, 
by law, they are required to attend courts ; and, second, to 
repeal the^ laws creating district courts and defining their 
jurisdiction and duties ; thus legislating your Judge Kanes, 
Magraths, and Joneses, out of ofi6.ce. 

If new district courts are indispensable, let them be 
carefully organized, and the judges be clothed with just as 



— 52 — 

little power and as limited a jurisdiction as possible. We 
should make business and the wants of the country the only 
basis for creating- districts ; and not create districts and 
offices for broken-down politicians, as has been done to an 
extent that would astonish the country, could it be known. 
As an evidence of this fact, look at the State of Florida ; 
with less than half the population of my Cong-ressional dis- 
trict, she has two United States District Courts, and, of course, 
two judg-es ; Tennessee, three ; Missouri, two ; and so on to the 
end of the list. Sir, unless a man has carefully examined 
this subject, he cannot conceive, and even after an examina- 
tion will be reluctant to come to the conclusions which I 
confess I have, to wit, that this Supreme Court is, as Jeffer- 
son declared it to be, "A SUBT11.B corps of sappers and 

MINERS, CONSTANTLY WORKING UNDER GROUND TO UNDERMINE 
ITS FOUNDATION." "ThEY ARE CONSTRUING OUR CONSTITU- 
TION," HE ADDED, "from A COORDINATION OF A GENERAI, 
AND SPECIAIv GOVERNMENT TO A GENERAL, AND SUPREME ONE 

ALONE." I feel confident, that if the usurpations of this 
court be not speedily checked, that the liberties of the peo- 
ple and the rights of the States will be endang-ered ; and the 
danger is the more imminent, from the fact that a class 
interest has secured absolute control of this court ; and 
having secured it, now demands that the party which it 
also controls, shall proclaim throug-h their Presidents, and 
party conventions, and party press, the doctrine that the 
political decisions of a majority of these nine men are in- 
fallible, and binding- upon the party, without the right of 
an appeal to the people. The extraordinary spectacle is 
presented to the world, of a once g-reat party, which cherished 
and defended the rig-hts of the masses, having- been taken 
possession of by an olig-archy, and the doctrine proclaimed 
that there must be an uncontrolled absolute power in the 
government somewhere, from which there can be no appeal ; 
and that power they claim to-day must be vested, not in 
Congress, or in the people, or in the States, but in a majoritj- 
of the nine men, who constitute this Supreme Court. 

Sir, the Republican theory is, that the government is 
not the master, but the servant. Every department was 
created by the people, not for the benefit of any class 



— 53 — 

interest, but for the safety and happiness of the whole, and 
every department is subordinate to their will. Government 
is but a means to an end ; and whenever it ceases to answer 
the purposes for which it was created, the people can alter 
or abolish it. 

Sir, neither the executive, nor judicial, nor law-making- 
power is supreme. The Constitution is above them ; and the 
people, who made the Constitution, and vested temporarily 
the authority of enacting-, executing, and adjudicating the 
laws, are above and superior to all. This absolute power, 
therefore, claimed for the Supreme Court by the Administra- 
tion party, must be resisted, because there cannot with safety 
be any department of a republican government from which 
an appeal to the people cannot be taken. If there is an abso- 
lute power in any government, above and superior to 
the people, it is a despotism. In an oration delivered by John 
Quincy Adams, July 4, 1831, and cited by Judge Story in a 
note to section 208 of his Commentaries, he says, in referring- 
to this subject : 

" It is not true, that there must reside in all governments 
an absolute, uncontrollable, irresistible, and despotic power ; 
nor is such power in any manner essential to sovereignty. 
Uncontrollable power exists in no government on earth. The 
sternest despotisms in any region, and in every age of the 
world, are and have been under perpetual control. Unlimited 
power belongs not to man ; and rotten will be the foundation 
of every government leaning- upon such a maxim for its sup- 
port. Least of all can it be predicated of a government pro- 
fessing- to be founded upon an original compact. The pre- 
tense of an absolute, irresistible, despotic power, existing in 
every government somewhere, is incompatible with the first 
principles of natural right." 

Sir, these well-considered reflections, made by one of the 
wisest and best statesmen who since the days of Washington 
have adorned and dignified the Presidential office, are well 
worthy of the serious consideration of the people at this 
important crisis in the history of our country ; when a great 
party, which for years has had possession of the g-overn- 
ment, has declared through its present Chief Executive that 
there is a power in the government to which every depart- 



— S4 — 

ment must yield, and to wnose opinions the members of all 
political parties must give implicit obedience. 

This anti-Democratic doctrine was broadly announced 
by Mr. Buchanan in that most remarkable passage in his late 
annual message to Congress, in which he said : 

'*I cordially congratulate you upon the final settlement, 
by the Supreme Court of the United States, of the question 
of slavery in the Territories," etc. 

And, strange to say, this dangerous anti-Republican, 
anti-Democratic doctrine, receives the support of the great 
body of Representatives on this floor claiming to be Demo- 
crats. 

Mr. Chairman, the efforts of Mr. Calhoun to enlist all 
the Southern States in his disunion movement of 1832-3, under 
color of opposition to the tariff act of 1828, having failed, 
and the scheme exposed and effectually crushed out by the 
boldness and decision of General Jackson, and this desperate 
faction and their leader excluded from the Democratic party 
during the administration of that old hero, other expedients 
were resorted to by Mr. Calhoun to secure the accomplish- 
ment of his cherished purpose — namely, either a dissolution 
of the Union and the organization of a Southern slavehold- 
ing confederacy, or the recognition by the present govern- 
ment of his theory, that slavery is recognized by the Consti- 
tution, and that Congress had no power to abolish or exclude 
it from the Territories or the District of Columbia. 

After the election of Van Buren to the Presidency, Mr. 
Calhoun and his followers were again received into a kind of 
QUASI fellowship with the Democratic party, and supported 
the leading measures of that Administration. The express 
ground upon which his support was given, was the alleged 
fact that Mr. Van Buren was disposed to favor Mr. Calhoun's 
theory that the Constitution of the United States recognized 
property in man. Whether such were Mr. Van Buren's 
views, or not, I am unable to say ; but certain it is, that he 
pledged himself in his inaugural address, unasked by the 
Democratic party, to veto any law which Congress might 
pass, abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia ; and 
before he had been one year in the Presidential office, he 



55 — 



acquired, for the first time in the history of the g-overnment, 
the unenviable appellation of a "Northern man with 
Southern principles." 

Failing-, however, to secure the open endorsement by the 
Democratic party of that day of the favorite theory of the 
slave power, Mr. Calhoun hit upon the plan o.f getting- pos- 
session of the Supreme Court, because it is a power the fur- 
thest removed from the people, is held in great esteem by 
them, and such acts of aggression as Mr. Calhoun contem- 
plated, if committed by the Supreme Court, he knew would 
be so quietly done as to excite no alarm, and pass almost 
unnoticed. 

In this scheme, as the history of the country will show, 
Mr. Calhoun was successful. 

Let us look at this point for a few moments. 

The Supreme Court was organized by an act of Con- 
gress passed on the 24th of September, 1789, by which act 
the court was made to consist of one Chief Justice and five 
Associates. 

By act of April 29, 1802, districts (each State being- 
then called a district) were formed into circuits, as follows : 

"The districts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and 
Rhode Island, shall constitute the first circuit. 

"The districts of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont, 
shall constitute the second circuit. 

"The districts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania shall 
constitute the third circuit. 

' ' The districts of Maryland and Delaware shall consti- 
tute the fourth circuit. 

"The districts of Virginia and North Carolina shall 
constitute the fifth circuit. 

"The districts of South Carolina and Georg-ia shall con- 
stitute the sixth circuit." 

It will be noticed that this law gave the North and 
South each three judges and three circuits. 

By the act of February 24, 1807, the Supreme Court was 
made to consist of seven judg-es ; and the seventh circuit 
comprised the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. 

By act of 3d of March, 1837, two additional judg-es and 
Southern circuits were created, and the district of Ohio 
detached from the circuit of Kentucky and Tennessee, and 



— 56 — 

the seventh, circuit made to consist of the States of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. In this act it was declared 
that " the districts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, 
shall form and be called the eig-hth circuit;" and "the dis- 
tricts of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, 
shall form and be called the ninth circuit." 

By the creation of the eighth and ninth circuits, the 
South, with less than half the population, and not more than 
one-fourth of the business in the Supreme Court, obtained a 
majority of the judges. Since the organization of the eighth 
and ninth circuits, the free States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Cali- 
fornia, Minnesota, and Oregon, have been admitted into the 
Union ; and although these States contain a population and 
have an amount of judicial business equal at least to one- 
third of those of the entire fifteen slave States, they have 
not been erected into or attached to judicial circuits, and 
have no representative on the bench of the Supreme Court. 
The reason for refusing or neglecting to place these States 
upon an equal footing with the new Southwestern States, 
whose populations are far less, will be manifest, I trust, 
before I get through. 

When Mr. Tyler, by the death of General Harrison, 
became President, and betrayed the party which elected him, 
by throwing himself into the arms of the disunion wing of 
the Democratic party, and placing Mr. Calhoun in the office 
of Secretary of State, for the purpose of acquiring Texas, a 
point was gained by this faction, which they have not only 
never lost, but having secured the control of the succeeding 
administration of Mr. Polk, they have advanced with rapid 
strides from a small and once powerless minority, as they 
were when treated as General Jackson treated them, until 
they have for years completely controlled the Democratic 
organization, and changed its fundamental principles. 

For the first time in the history of the government, 
under Mr. Tyler's administration, the opinions of men 
selected for the Supreme Court on the question of slavery 
were made a test of their promotion to that exalted position. 
No man who was known to entertain views hostile to the 
interest and political opinions of the privileged class repre- 



— 57 — 

sented by Mr. Calhoun could be nominated, or, if nominated, 
confirmed to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court. And 
one of the present judg-es — Justice Nelson, of the State of 
New York — was selected by President Tyler, with the ap- 
proval of Mr. Calhoun, because of his reputed fidelity to this 
class interest. Having- secured by the death of President Har- 
rison the executive branch of the g"overnment, their next step 
was to obtain the control of the Senate committees, especially 
the Judiciary Committee, to which all nominations for the 
Supreme Court are referred ; and, as a result of this policy, the 
Judiciary Committee for the last twenty years has been com- 
pletely in the hands of this faction. The following" Senators 
were members of the Judiciary Committee at the time of which 
I am speaking- : Ashley of Arkansas, chairman ; Breese of 
Illinois, Berrien of Georgia, Westcott of Florida, and Web- 
ster of Massachusetts. They recommended the confirmation 
of Robert C. Grier, of Philadelphia, and the rejection or 
withdrawal by the President, if not of each of the following- 
names, at Isast of such men as John M. Read, Edward King- 
and Georg-e W. Woodward, of Pennsylvania, who were 
severally nominated, and rejected or withdrawn because of 
their known opposition to slavery, and their belief that 
Congress had the power, under the Constitution, and that it 
was their duty, to abolish and prohibit slavery in all national 
Territories. 

During- Mr. Fillmore's administration, the Judiciary 
Committee recommended the rejection, or postponement, or 
withdrawal of the nomination of E. A. Bradford, of 
Louisiana, one of the most disting-uished lawyers of that 
State, and also the indefinite postponement of the nomina- 
tion of William C. Micou, of the same State, on the same 

DAY THE NOMINATION WAS SENT TO THE SENATE. Mr. MicoU 

was at that time a law partner of Senator Benjamin, of 
Louisiana, and a distinguished member of the bar. This 
was disposing- of a man summarily. These nominations 
were made by Mr. Fillmore, as was also the nomination of 
Hon. Georg-e E. Badg-er, of North Carolina, whose confirma- 
tion was refused, and the consideration of it postponed on 
the recommendation of this committee by a test vote of 26 



— 58 — 

to 25, simply because he believed, with Henry Clay, that 
Congress had the power to exclude slavery from the Terri- 
tories. So close was this vote, that the slave interest were 
compelled to telegraph to Alabama for Senator Fitzpatrick 
to come on and aid in his defeat by postponing* the con- 
sideration of the subject until the inauguration of Mr. Pierce, 
who at that time was elected. After Mr. Pierce came into 
office, he submitted the name of John A. Campbell, of Ala- 
bama, and he was confirmed. This committee were : Butler 
of South Carolina, chairman ; Downs of Louisiana, Bradbury 
of Maine, Geyer of Missouri, and Badger of North Carolina. 
It will be observed that on this important committee but one 
member was from the free States, and he a supporter of the 
Administration. 

How many of the best and most distinguished men have 
been rejected during the past twenty years, after having 
been nominated for seats on the Supreme Bench, the public 
have no means of determining, as the official action of the 
Senate is locked up in its secret archives, into which the 
people are never permitted to look by the leaders of the Democ- 
racy, who fear being called to an account for their base 
betrayal of the interests and wishes of their constituents. 
Many things have been said and done in the secret sessions 
of the United States Senate, which, if made public at the 
time, would have consigned the utterer to the shades of pri- 
vate life, and the party to a hopeless minority. This prac- 
tice of holding secret sessions of the Senate is a feature in 
our system of government for which I have no partiality, 
and for which there is, in my judgment, no justification, 
except, perhaps, when the country is engaged in a foreign 
war, or discussing the proposed ratification of a treaty. No 
business touching or aifecting the interest of the country at 
home should be done in secret, and kept from the people. 
The following are some of the names which I remember, 
although there are doubtless more persons who have been 
nominated for places on the Supreme Bench, and either 
rejected or their names withdrawn : John C. Spencer, of 
New York ; Reuben H. Walworth, for many years chancellor 
of the State of New York ; Edward King, George W. Wood- 



59 — 



ward, and John M. Read, of Pennsylvania ; E. A. Bradford 
and William C. Micou, of Louisiana ; Georg-e E. Badg-er, of 
North Carolina ; and others, whose names I cannot now 
recall. 

And in the places of such disting-uished jurists and most 
worthy and learned citizens, we have to-day, as the result 
and success of the Calhoun conspiracy, Nelson of New York, 
Grier of Pennsylvania, Campbell of Alabama, Daniel* of 
Virg-inia, and Clifford of Maine ; some of whom certainly 
would never have been thoug-ht of for a seat on the Supreme 
Bench, but for . their loyalty and devotion to the interest and 
wishes of the slave power. To the political opinions of a 
court thus constituted, the people of the United States are 
called upon by the President, and the so-called Democratic 
party, to bow in submission ; and are denounced as traitors 
to the Constitution and the Union, unless they yield up their 
political views, and embrace those of a majority of this 
packed and irresponsible tribunal. 

If the neg-lect to org^anize the five free States I have 
named into circuits, and give them representatives on the 
bench, and the unfair manner in which the present nine cir- 
cuits are constituted, in order, as must be apparent to every 
one, to secure a majority of the Supreme Court judg-es to the 
South, is not, of itself, sufficient to satisfy any impartial 
mind of the covert desig^ns of those who control and dictate 
the policy of the Democratic party, a g-lance at the popula- 
tion of one or two of the judicial circuits, and the business 
before the court, will satisf}^ the most skeptical that this 
inequality is not the result of mere accident, but of a deliber- 
ate, well-laid, persistently-pursued scheme. 

Take the population of the ninth circuit, composed of 
the States of Arkansas and Mississippi, and compare it with 
the seventh, Judge McLean's circuit, which comprises the 
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. The ninth 
circuit, Justice Daniel's, contains little, if any, over half a 
million of white inhabitants ; while Justice McLean's contains 
over six millions. The second circuit. Justice Nelson's, com- 
posed of the States of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, 



'^Deceased since the delivery of this speech. 



60- 



contains over five millions o.f freemen ; while the fifth cir- 
cuit, Justice Campbell's, composed of the States of Louis- 
iana and Alabama, has but little over a million white inhabi- 
tants. 

But, if the inequality of population is great in these 
circuits, the inequality of labor and business disposed of by 
each of the judges of these circuits is far greater. I have 
taken the trouble, since I have had the honor of a seat here, 
to examine into this matter, and have obtained the following 
accurate statement of the business of the five Southern circuits, 
and the circuit of Judge McLean, from the 1st of January, 
1856, to the 1st of January, 1857, to which I invite the special 
attention of the House, as demonstrating, more forcibly than 
any argument of mine, the deliberate purpose of the repre- 
sentatives of the so-called Democratic party to secure to this 
Southern privileged class, who are but a small minority of 
the people, the absolute control of this important and dan- 
gerous department of the government. 

This statement will show the number of cases on the 
docket in five of the Southern circuits, also Judge McLean's 
circuit, on the 1st of January, 1856, and the number added 
during the year 1856, the number tried and disposed of that 
year, and the number remaining undisposed of, January 
1, 1857. 



— 61 — 



CIRCUITS. 


a 

u 


.5 

3 in 

•a a6 

•a M 
1^ 
d 


s 



"O . 
a NO 

o 53 

w 

6 


a 

as - 

i5 


For the fourth circuit, composed 
of the States of Delaware, 
Maryland, and Virg-inia, Chief 
Justice Taney presiding", the 
returns show 


444 
350 

133 

316 
333 


328 
379 

289 

257 
170 


388 
413 

311 

316 

294 


384 


For the fifth circuit, composed of 
the States of Louisiana and 
Alabama, Judg-e Campbell pre- 
siding-, the returns show 

For the sixth circuit, composed 
of the States of Georgia, South 
Carolina, and North Carolina, 
Judg-e Wayne presiding-, the 
returns show 


317 
111 


For the eighth circuit, composed 
of the States of Missouri, Ten- 
nessee, and Kentucky, Judg-e 
Catijon presiding-, the returns 
show 


257 


For the ninth circuit, composed 
of the States of Arkansas and 
Mississippi, Judge Daniel pre- 
siding-, the returns show 


210 


Total for five Southern circuits 


1,576 


1,423 


1,721 


1,279 


For the seventh (Judge McLean's) 
circuit, composed of the States 
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and 
Michigan, the returns show 
more business than all the five 
Southern circuits 


1,481 


2,037 


1,782 


1,736 





62 — 



It will be seen by this statement that Judg-e McLean has 
more business in his single circuit than all the five Southern 
judg-es in their five Southern circuits. That the number of 
cases docketed in the course of the year was greater ; the 
number disposed of greater ; and the number remaining undis- 
posed of on the 1st of January, 1857, was greater. 

What justification, excuse, or apology, can the members 
of the Democratic party in the North give for this shameful 
neglect or betrayal of the interest of their constituents? 

Let any impartial man look over this table, and answer 
the question, " how ought these circuits to be constituted?" 
and he will answer you, "in proportion to thk amount of 

BUSINESS DONE BY EACH JUDGE OP THE SEVERAL CIRCUITS." If 

this just principle should be adopted, as it ought to be, and 
will be some day adopted, and the average business of the 
present five Southern circuits should constitute the basis for 
creating new judicial circuits and judges of the Supreme 
Court, the North would be entitled to at least fourteen or fif- 
teen more circuits and judges, without including the States 
of Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, and Oregon, 
which I have not included in the above calculations. 

Why is it that this inequality is permitted to continue? 
•Why is it that the Representatives of the so-called Demo- 
cratic party from the North have not long ago moved to 
equalize this department of the government, and obtain for 
their constituents a representation on the bench equal to 
their numbers, business, and wealth? 

To say that all this is the result of accident, and the 
unexpected increase of population in the North, is a mockery. 
I tell you, as all reflecting and observing men who are not 
partisans will tell you, that it is but one of the many 
schemes to which the Democratic party, since its surrender to 
the Calhoun faction, has lent the use of its great name and 
influence to establish and make permanent and universal the 
institution of human slavery in all the States and Territories 
of this Republic. 

Mr. Chairman, the time was, and that, too, within the 
memory of many members on this floor, when slavery was 
regarded and admitted by the great majority of the Ameri- 



— 63- 



can people, by men of all parties and all relig-ious creeds, to 
be a moral, social, and political evil, from wliich it was the 
duty of the States to free themselves as speedily as possi- 
ble, and for the existence and continuance of which the 
National Government should in no way be held responsible 
before the world. Now all this is chang-ed ; and a great 
party to-day, throug-h its Representatives in this Hall, with 
here and there an exception, claim that slavery is a moral, 
a Christian, and desirable political institution, established by 
the Great Supreme, for the happiness alike of the white and 
black races. And not only this, but they claim that the 
National Constitution, which our fathers declared they 
ordained to secure the blessing-s of liberty, carries, sustains, 
and protects, of its own force, the rig-ht of the master to the 
person and service of his slave on every foot of soil, and 
wherever floats the national • ensigfn, save only in States 
where, by positive enactments, its existence is prohibited ; 
in other words, that slavery is a natural, leg-al, and 
universal relation, and freedom unnatural, exceptional, and 
local, and only made exceptional by the exercise of the arbi- 
trary will of the electors of theS tates, expressed in the form 
of positive leg-islative inhibition. Even this pretended rig-ht, 
unsustained as it was by any respectable number of men 
from the org-anization of the g-overnment until the birth of 
the Calhoun party, in 1844, has become the cardinal point in 
the Democratic creed. 

This desperate faction was unfortunately recognized and 
neg-otiated with at that time, and its leaders succeeded in 
making- a secret treaty with the recog-nized chief of the 
Democratic party, from the bad efEects of which the party 
never recovered. Since that time (1844), this mere faction — 
a clique that twenty years ag-o could be easily numbered — 
have been constantly g-aining- in power and strength, until at 
last they have been able to force from the party an authori- 
tative recognition of their doctrines. They have baptized 
them in the name of Democracy; and from this time forward, 
not only are the living principles of the old Democratic 
party to be abandoned, but the doctrine is to be maintained 
that the Dred Scott decision is the true interpretation of the 



64 — 



Constitution ; that the log-ical result of that decision prevents 
the people of any State from excluding- slavery. 

On the I7th of November, 1857, the Washing-ton Union, 
the org-an of the Administration, and the special mouth- 
piece of the President, in speaking- of this subject, said : 

*'Thb constitution deci^ares that 'the citizens op 
EACH State shalIv be entiti^ed to ai.i^ the privileges and 

IMMUNITIES OP CITIZENS IN THE SEVERAI. STATES.' Every 

citizen of one State coming- into another State has therefore 
a rig-ht to the protection of his person, and that property 
which is recog-nized as such by the Constitution of the 
United States, any law of a State to the contrary notwith- 
standing-. So far from any State havin'g- a rig-ht to deprive 
him of this property, it is its bounden duty to protect him iti 
its possession. 

"If these views are correct — and we believe it would 
be difficult to invalidate them — it follows that all State laws, 
whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit a citizen of 
one State from SETTUNG in another, and bringing his si.ave 
property with him, and most especially declaring- it for- 
feited, are direct violations of the orig-inal intention of a 
g-overnment which, as before stated, is the protection of 
person and property, and of the Constitution of the United 
States, which recog-nizes property in slaves, and declares 
that 'the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
privileg-es and immunities of citizens in the several States,' 
among- the most essential of which is the protection of per- 
son and property." 

And, in my judgment, this will be the next ag-g-ressive 
step made by the present Administration party upon the free 
people of this country. Yes, sir; I firmly believe that we 
are to have a second Dred Scott decision by the present 
Supreme Court, which will fully sustain this monstrous claim 
now openly set up by many of the leaders of this Calhoun 
party, provided, always, that they are successful in the com- 
ing- Presidential election, and the Supreme Court can thereby 
have the assurance it had when Mr. Buchanan was elected, 
that its decrees will be enforced by the strong- arm of the 
Executive department of the government, with the army and 
navy and purse of the nation at its command. I infer this 
both from the manner in which the members of this court 
have been selected, and from the history of the first Dred 



-65~ 

Scott case. Tlie L<emmon case, as it is familiarly called, but 
wliich I desig-nate the second Dred Scott case, has been, as 
gentlemen are aware, carried up on appeal by the authorities 
of the State of Virginia from the Supreme Court of the 
State of New York to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, and presents a case exactly in point; and I doubt not 
is prosecuted by Virginia for no other purpose than to obtain 
another political decision from this court to sustain their 
pro-slaver}' interpretations of the Constitution. If this is 
not the case, why is the decision of the New York court to 
be carried up for revision^ as the State of Virginia did not 
own the slave liberated by Judge Payne ; and Mr. Lemmon, 
I believe, was paid the full value of these slaves by the cot- 
ton merchants of New York, soon after their liberation? 

There can be but one motive for the action of Virginia 
in the premises; and that is, to secure another pro-slavery 
opinion from the Supreme Court, sustaining their interpreta- 
tion of the Constitution — an interpretation which even Mr. 
Calhoun never openly claimed, but which his disciples, em- 
boldened by their success, now claim to be the true one — 
namely, that slaveholders have the right, under the Consti- 
tution of the United States, to go, not only into all the 
organized Territories, but into any or all the organized North- 
ern States, with their slaves, and there have them protected 
by the National Government, in defiance of the local laws of 
the State. It is my solemn, deliberate conviction, that this 
clearly unconstitutional claim will be sustained by the 
Supreme Court, if a President is elected this year by the pro- 
slavery party of the country. And let me ask, gentlemen, if 
such a decision is any more unlikely to happen than the first 
Dred Scott decision? And does it not necessarily follow, if 
the Dred Scott decision is correct, that the decision of the 
Supreme Court of the State of New York, in the Lemmon 
case, is wrong? 

Let us look at this point a moment. The Kansas- 
Nebraska bills contained the germ from which both these 
pro-slavery questions were dug up. Both bills declared — 

"That it is the true intent and meaning of this act, not 
to legislate slavery into an}' Territory or State, nor to exclude 



— ce- 
lt therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to 
form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their 
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." 

At the time the Kansas-Nebraska bills were under dis- 
cussion, no person was able to discover why the clause "not 

TO LEGISLATE) SLAVERY INTO ANY TERRITORY OR StATE, NOR 

TO EXCI.UDE IT THEREFROM," was inserted in said acts ; and 
their distinguished author, from that day to this, has never 
enlightened the country on this point, although frequently 
and urgently pressed to do so. The concluding line of this 
extraordinary section, "subject only to the Constitution 
OF THE United States," was understood and denounced at 
the time as a cunningly-devised scheme for getting the politi- 
cal question of the power of Congress over the subject of 
slavery in the Territories before the Supreme Court, which, 
was now, for the first time in the history of the government, 
regarded as a partisan tribunal, completely in the hands of 
the pro-slavery party, who had selected a majority of the 
judges for their well-known sympathy with the privileged 
class and their fidelity to the interest of slavery. 

The meaning of the words, " not to legislat:© slavery 
INTO ANY Territory or State, nor to exclude it there- 
from," was soon comprehended after the Presidential elec- 
tion of 1856, from the authoritative interpretation given by 
the President and his party to this apparently harmless 
declaration, and the subsequent action of the Supreme Court 
in the Dred Scott case. About a year after the passage of 
the Kansas-Nebraska act, the Dred Scott case is first heard 
of by the people, and an unpleasant apprehension imme- 
diately took possession of the public mind. Arguments were 
made by counsel in t'ne winter of 1855 and 1856, but the 
decision was reserved. The Presidential election was ap- 
proaching, and this " august tribunal" thought it prudent 
to defer their decision, and not submit it to that higher, 
better, and safer court of appeals, the people, so soon after 
its delivery. They therefore reserved their opinions, and 
ordered the case to be reargued ; and thus a year's time was 
gained, which carried them over the Presidential election of 



— 67 



1856, and. enabled the court to know positively whether they 
could rely upon the executive and leg-islative departments 
of the government to sustain and enforce their contemplated 
usurpation. 

The Cincinnati convention in the mean time had been 
held, and reconstructed the creed of the party, and nominated 
Mr. Buchanan. In this platform, the Southern members of 
the party, understanding- what would be the probable action 
of the court in the Dred Scott case, determined to aid the 
court in their contemplated decision, by giving* two interpre- 
tations to the Kansas-Nebraska act, while claiming, authori- 
tatively, to give but one. The manner in which they did 
this, was by resolving that the people of Kansas might deter- 
mine for themselves whether they would have slavery or not, 
"whenever the number of inhabitants justified it." 
This was a cunning play upon words, and intended to deceive 
the people, by permitting one interpretation in the North and 
quite a different one in the South, for the double purpose of 
political effect during the Presidential campaign. After the 
election, if successful, they were to make a new definition, 
which was necessary, in order to harmonize the conflicting 
views of the party leaders, and in order the more effectually 
to aid in the pretended settlement of this "vexed question." 
The public pledge of the party was everywhere cautiously 
secured in advance, through all the appliances known to this 
wonderful party organization, to abide by and sustain, as a 
final settlement, the interpretation, whatever it might be, 
that the Supreme Court would give to this plank in the Cin- 
cinnati platform.* With this arrangement, the slave barons 

'■■Senator Benjamin, of Louisiana, in a late speech which I regard as one of the 
ablest and most forcible yet made against the position and consistency of Mr.'Doug'las, 
frankly declared, on the floor of the Senate, that the above charges of a secret con- 
spiracy were true ; and though this fact was well known to many, it had never before 
been admitted by any leading member of the Democratic party, 

Mr. Benjamin said, substantially, that^ 

" Both wings of the Democracy agreed, in a caucus of the Senate, in 1854, that 
* each should maintain its particular theory before the public — one side sustaining 
'Squatter Sovereignty, and the other protection to slavery in the Terri- 
' tories, but pledging themselves to abide by the decision of the supreme 
'Court, •whatever it might be." 

This was the secret bargain which Mr. Benjamin charged Mr. Douglas with vio- 
lating, declaring that he (Douglas) had failed to keep good his pledge. 

In this manner, the people of the free States were deceived into the support of Mr. 
Buchanan, in 1856. Let the freemen of the North see to it that they are not again 
deceived by secret bargains in 1860. 



— 68- 



felt safe and confident, after having- secured the election of 
Mr. Buchanan, and as soon thereafter as they thoug-ht it 
expedient, they openly, throug"h the outg-oing- and incoming- 
Executives, and in the Halls of this Capitol, claimed the 
extreme Southern interpretation to be the true one. 

The true interpretation having been thus authoritatively 
established by the court, and declared to be, that "the peo- 
ple OF THE Territories shoui^d never have the power, 
WHILE IN A Territorial condition, to abolish or exclude 
SLAVERY," the abandonment of the deceptive and alluring- 
catch-words of " POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY " became a necessity 
with all who were members of the party, except a few who 
were denominated "rebels," or the undisg*uised demagog-ues 
who still remain with the party. Mr. Buchanan, in his in- 
augural, openly sustained Calhoun's theory on this question, 
and, in the Silliman letter, declared that slavery, by virtue 
of the Constitution, not only existed in all the Territories of 
the Union, but that "it existed in Kansas as completely 
AS in Georgia or South Carolina;" and he adds, in his last 
annual message, to complete the record, and sustain in ad- 
vance the well-known forthcoming- decision of the Supreme 
Court in this second Dred Scott case, to which I have alluded, 
"that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legisla- 
ture, NOR ANY Human Power, has any authority to annul 
or impair this vested right," claiming that the Supreme 
Court has finally established the right of every citizen to 
"take his slave property into the Territories, and 

HAVE it protected THERE UNDER THE CONSTITUTION." He 

would thus irrevocably fix the status of all national Terri- 
tories as slave Territories, and deprive the people of the 
power to alter or change it ; and, as if to extinguish the last 
vestige of "popular sovereignty," the President declares 
that, if it "had been decided that either Congress or a 
Territorial Legislature possessed the power to impair 

THIS right op property IN SLAVES, THE EVIL WOULD HAVE 

BEEN INTOLERABLE." He claims that the Supreme Court have 
the power, and should protect this class interest ag-ainst the 
will of the people; and that Cong-ress, if necessary, "must 

STRENGTHEN THEIR HANDS BY FURTHER LEGISLATION." Com- 
ment on such a political record is unnecessary. 



— 69 — 

During- the Presidential contest of 1856, the Supreme 
Court and slave barons held their breath, and only breathed 
freely ag-ain after the smoke of the battle had cleared away, 
and they found that they had secured another four years' 
lease of power by the election of Mr. Buchanan. That result 
could only have happened then, and can only be repeated 
now, by the folly and division of their opponents, who were 
then, and are to-day, a larg-e majority of the people. 

About the time of the inaug-uration of Mr. Buchanan, 
the Dred Scott case was reargued, as ordered, and the court 
were now prepared to take the course so long- and cautiously 
contemplated ; when all the precedents of this tribunal, even 
their own decisions, and the adjudications of such men as 
Jay and Story and Marshall were to be overruled, and the 
doctrine officially proclaimed to the world, "that the Constitu- 
tion of the United States recog-nized property in man." 

In order that the nation might be prepared to submit to 
almost any new agg-ression of the slave barons, the leaders of 
this class interest, who always rule with an unrelenting' 
despotism, saw to it that the outg-oing- President of the 
United States should prepare the party, and especially all the 
hungry swarm of applicants for official favor under the incom- 
ing- Administration, to defend, in advance, the decision of 
tlie Supreme Court, whatever it mig-ht be. 

In accordance with this cunning-ly-devised prog-ramme, 
President Pierce, in his last annual messag-e, claimed that 
the people, in the election of Mr. Buchanan (althoug-h all 
knew he was elected by a minority of the votes), endorsed 
the Kansas-Nebraska act ; and apprised them of the fact that 
this Dred Scott decision, althoug-h not at that time officially 
announced from the bench, had been ag-reed upon, and that 
the court ' ' had finally determined this point, to wit : that 
Congress had no power to exci^ude sx,avery from States 
OR Territories, in every form in which the question 
COULD ARISE." He thus advised, in advance, all the aspirants 
and politicians of the country, who desired favors or promo- 
tion at the hands of the slave barons, under the incoming- 
administration^ of Mr. Buchanan, the course necessary for 
them to pursue, in order the more eifectually to secure a 
recog-nition of their claims. The following- extract from the 



■70 — 



messag-e referred to, thoug-h expressed in ambiguous and 
carefully selected language, applies to, and was intended to 
apply to, the Dred Scott case. The use of the words, " in a 
LONG SERIES OF DECISIONS," was intended to mislead and 
deceive the masses of the people, for the court had never 
established any such doctrine as claimed by " a long series 
OF DECISIONS," but had uniformly decided directly the reverse, 
so far as regards the power of Congress to exclude slavery 
from the Territories. 

The manner in which the author of this part of the mes- 
sage (whom Colonel Benton alleges was Caleb Cushing, then 
Attorney General) couples the terms "private rights," 
"navigation," "religion," and servitude," cannot fail to 
attract the attention of the careful reader. "What rights of 
"religion" were affected or secured by this decision, in either 
States or Territories, has not transpired. The President 
says : ■ ' 

"Thereupon this enactment [the Missouri compromise] 
ceased to have binding virtue in any sense, whether as re- 
spects the North or the South [because the 'North would 
NOT AGREE TO EXTEND IT TO THE Pacific] , and SO in effect it 
was treated on the occasion- of the admission of the State of 
California, and the organization of the Territories of New 
Mexico, Utah, and Washington. 

"Such was the state of the question when the time 
arrived for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and 
Nebraska. In the progress of constitutional inquiry and 
reflection, it had now at length come to be seen clearly that 
Congress does not possess constitutional power to impose 
restrictions of this character [the exclusion of slavery] upon 
any present or future State of the Union. In a long series 
OP DECISIONS, on the fullest argument, and after the most 
deliberate consideration, the Supreme Court of the United 
States had finally determined this point, in every form in 
WHICH THE QUESTION COULD ARISE, whether as affecting pub- 
lic or private rights in the questions of public domain, op 
RELIGION, op navigation, and of servitude." 

Colonel Benton characterizes, and very justly, that part 
of the message from which the above extract is taken, as 
follows : 

"The last annual message of Mr. Pierce was the last 
opportunity for this defensive pleading (declaring the Mis- 



-71 



souri compromise unconstitutional, and sustaining- the court), 
and being- the last, it was carefully seized on and vigorously 
improved to the best advantage. The message was big- with 
it. It was a large plea and a bold one, and conspicuously 
presented. In quantity, it filled eleven octavo pages (leav- 
ing but seventeen for all the appropriate subjects which 
belong to that of&cial paper); in boldness it inaugurated a 
new era in our Presidential messages — the era of historical 
falsification in these high papers — heretofore considered the 
sacred receptacle of veracious history ; in conspicuity, being- 
thrust in front of the message, instead of being relegated to 
its fag-end, where such low matter should g-o, if, indeed, 
allowed to enter a message at all, which it never was before. 
Veracious history must rebuke this first attempt to make the 
Presidential annual message a vehicle of historical falsifica- 
tion; and the work is easily done, all the facts necessary to 
the correction of the fallacious statements being of record in 
the debates and Journals of Congress, and other authentic 
public evidence." 

Mr. Buchanan, in his inaugural address, referred to the 
forthcoming- decision in the Dred Scott case, and with appar- 
ently great regard for this "august tribunal," which in 
former years, and before it was regarded as partisan, he and 
the whole Democratic party had denounced as an unsafe 
depository of power, says : 

' ' To their decision, in common with all g-ood citizens, I 
shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be." 

In reference to the differences of opinion that had arisen 
as to the point of time when the people of a Territory should 
have power to exclude slavery, he says : 

"This is happily a matter of but little practical impor- 
tance. Besides, it is a judicial question" — when, or why, or 
on whose authority, this became a judicial question, he does 
not inform the country — "which leg-itimately belongs to 
the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is 
now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and 
finally settled. To their decision, in common with all g-ood 
citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be." 

These declarations of the outgoing and incoming- Presi- 
dents simply meant that the politicians and applicants for 
official favor should not only endorse this decision themselves, 
but that they should prepare the minds of the people, so far as 



— 72 — 

possible, but especially the Democratic party, for one of the 
most startling- decisions ever announced by any judicial 
tribunal in the world; and so successfully did this well-laid plot 
work, that partisans and place-hunters in many of the free 
States succeeded in having- the decision of this court endorsed 
by their party conventions, with apparent enthusiasm, imme- 
diately after its delivery. If there had not been something- 
unusual and alarming- at the bottom of this forthcoming- 
decision of the Supreme Court, in a case which only involved 
the title to an old superannuated black man, whose value was 
not one hundred dollars in any slave market in the world, 
and who, I believe, died within a year after this decision was 
made, would there have been any such anxiety about this 
case as was manifested by the slave barons? Can any gentle- 
man on the administration side of the House answer the 
question? No, sir, he cannot; and it will not be attempted. 
This court has decided cases, time and again, involving- the 
title to millions of property, and yet no President and no 
party conventions, or party press, ever in advance called 
upon or appealed to the litig-ants, much less a party, or the 
people at larg-e, to submit to a forthcoming decision of this 
tribunal. 

After all this skilful preparation, comes the I ng--delayed 
decision of the court, which substantially declared, that as 
black men had no natural or political rig-hts, and were not 
citizens, that they could not maintain a suit for their free- 
dom, or have a hearing- for any purpose in the courts of the 
United States. Had the court stopped right here, and con- 
tented themselves simply with deciding- all the points there 
were in the case, as I understand it, there would have been no 
such extraordinary effort on the part of the slave barons, 
throug-h the of&cial influence and patronage of two Presi- 
dents, to induce the party and people of the Northern States 
to submit to this decision. For though I regard the declara- 
tion of the court that a black man, the descendant of Afri- 
cans who were stolen from Africa and enslaved by pirates, 
has no claims either to a hearing or protection to life and 
liberty from this department of the government as mon- 
strous, and contrary to the spirit and genius of our institu- 
tions, which should protect and defend the rights of every 



— 73- 

human being-, however humble, within our jurisdiction, yet I 
say, if this had been all of the case, and the court had not 
traveled out of the record in its attempt to get hold of, and 
pass upon, political questions, which were not and could not 
properly be before it, there would have been no anxiety or 
alarm on the part of the slave barons as to the probable sub- 
mission of the g-reat mass of the people to this decision, 
especially of their Northern allies. 

On this point, the late Colonel Benton, in his examina- 
tion of the Dred Scott case (pag-e 5), justly remarks: 

*' The court, in repulsing- jurisdiction of the orig-inal case, 
and dismissing- it for the want of the rig-ht to try it [after 
dismissing- it] , found g-reat difficulty in g-etting- at its merits 
— at the merits of the dismissed case itself; and certainly, still 
g-reater difficulty in g-etting- at the merits of two great politi- 
cal questions, which lie so far behind it. The court evidently 
felt this difficulty, and worked sedulously to avoid it — -sedu- 
lously at building- a bridg-e long- and slender, upon which a 
majority of these judg-es crossed the wide and deep gulf 
which separated the personal rights of Dred Scott and his 
family from the political institutions and the political rights 
of the whole body of the American people." 

Mr. Justice Wayne, in constructing one of the spans of 
this shaky and unsubstantial judicial bridge, on which a 
majority of the court crossed the deep gulf referred to by 
Colonel Benton, assigned as a reason for traveling out of the 
record, and passing upon the constitutionality of the Mis- 
souri compromise, its necessity, in order to give peace to the 
country. He said : 

"The case involves private rights of great value, and 
constitutional principles of the highest importance, about 
which there had become such a difference of opinion, that 
the peace and harmony of the country required the settle- 
ment of them by judicial decision." 

From whence the Supreme Court derived their authority 
to settle political questions, in order, as Mr. Justice Wayne 
says, to secure "peace) and harmony" between contending 
political parties, neither he, nor either of the judges concur- 
ring in this opinion, have seen proper to inform the public. 

When the court thus traveled out of the record, and 
assumed to pass upon the power of Congress and the Terri- 



— 74 



torial Leg"islatures to prohibit and. exclude slavery in the 
Territories of the nation, and declare, as it did in this case, 
that neither Cong-ress nor a Territorial Legislature possessed 
the power, notwithstanding- the uniform practice of the 
g-overnment for seventy years had been to exclude and pro- 
hibit slavery by Cong-ressional enactment, there was fear, 
and just cause for fear, on the part of the slave barons, the 
President, and the court itself, that the people would not sub- 
mit to a decision that virtually changed their Constitution. 
Hence the great anxiety of the privileged class — for whose 
sole benefit this decision was made — to secure acquiescence 
in the endorsement by the people of this usurpation of the 
Supreme Court. 

To secure this, the first necessary step was to compel the 
President to proscribe all the leading men in the party, and 
all applicants for office, who did not submit to, and accept 
with alacrity, the decision of the court as "final." These 
were required to join the government in the use of all the 
power and patronage at its command, and the unscrupulous 
use of all party appliances, to secure the most unqualified 
endorsement of this decision by every State convention of 
the party in the North, thus making a judicial decision a 
party question; and, so far from settling the points assumed 
to be adjudicated by the court, making the opinion of the 
court itself a new and a test question of party fidelity, 
"bringing the court into the political field," as Colonel 
Benton has said, and making the new questions thus raised 
"the very watchwords op parties." For assuredly this is 
a question which must become far more bitter and malignant 
than the slavery question, itself, when the people fully com- 
prehend the alarming power assumed by this irresponsible 
department of the government to change or annul their Con- 
stitution at pleasure. I say irresponsible department; be- 
cause, holding their offices for life, and not amenable to the 
people for their acts, they have no fear of removal, and do 
not regard, as Mr. Jefferson has said, the power of impeach- 
ment even as a "scarecrow." 

The important points which the Supreme Court assumed 
to decide for the interest of the slave barons were : first, that 



75 — 



no slave, or the descendant of a slave, could maintain a suit 
at law for any purpose in any of the courts of the United 
States. 

This decision was demanded and deemed necessary, in 
order that the precedent mig-ht be settled favorable to this 
class interest, while the pro-slavery party had possession of 
the courts, so that thereafter no slave, or person held as 
such, should be allowed to bring- suit for his or her freedom, 
or sue out a writ of habeas corpus before any of said courts, 
to compel the party holding- any such persons as slaves to 
show by what authority said person or persons were dis- 
trained of their liberty, unless the court should first overrule 
this decision. 

The point thus g-ained by the slave barons was an impor- 
tant one, because it made it necessary thereafter for all per- 
sons suing- for their freedom, to bring- their suits in the State 
courts, where, the law-makers, the judg-es, and juries, being- 
all slaveholders, there would be no question that the interests 
and wishes of the privileg-ed class would be omnipotent. 
But little dang-er could be apprehended, with such laws as are 
enacted by Southern States to g-uard and protect this class 
interest, of any persons obtaining- their freedom, thoug-h they 
might be so white that they would readily pass for white per- 
sons, and though it might be well known to the claimant, as 
well as judge and jury, that the person thus held was born 
free. Hence the importance of this point to the slaveholder, 
else such suits as I have alluded to might, and doubtless 
would, become troublesome and inconvenient to the privileged 
class, as there are a number of States whose Constitutions 
and laws do not establish slavery as an institution, but simply 
recognize the relation of master and slave without establish- 
ing the right. 

2. That the Constitution, of its own inherent force, 
extends to all Territories as soon as acquired. On this point, 
I quote the testimony of Mr. Benton, because it is of great 
value, as showing what views were entertained by all depart- 
ments of the government on this question up to the time this 
decision was made. (I do not, however, desire to be under- 
stood as endorsing Mr. Benton's views in full on this point.) 



— 76— 

He says, in his Notification to the Reader, in his volume 
examining- the Dred Scott case : 

" Without g"oing- further into that history, in this brief 
posTSCRiPTUM notification, and confining- himself to the pre- 
cise point in issue, the writer will say that the administra- 
tion of Mr. Monroe expressly, by unanimous decision, and 
each House of Cong-ress impliedly, and without division, 
decided that no part of the Constitution and no act of Con- 
g-ress went to a Territory unless extended to it by act of Con- 
g-ress." 

3. That the Constitution recog-nized slaves as property 
as well as persons, and, because thus recog-nized, Cong-ress 
had no power to prohibit the introduction of, or to exclude 
after it was introduced, this species of property from the 
Territories ; and 

4. "If (as the court say) Congress cannot exercise this 
power (to exclude slavery from the Territories), it will hardly 
be claimed that it can delegate the power to a Territorial 
Legislature." 

In this summary manner, and in these words, did the 
Supreme Court, whose decisions Mr. Douglas pretends to 
endorse, dispose of hlr boasted theory of popular sovereignty, 
and thus were Che deception and fraud practiced upon the 
people of the North in 1856 unblushingly proclaimed. 

The doctrine that the Constitution of the United States 
recognizes slaves as property, and that Congress has not the 
power to exclude it from the Territories, having been estab- 
lished, so far as the authority of the Supreme Court and the 
united voice of a great pari'y can establish it, the next step 
in the series of aggressions and usurpations contemplated by 
this tribunal, and the class who created and control it, is to 
declare that slavery cannot lawfully be excluded from any of 
the States of the Union; that so long as one State in the 
Union recognizes and sanctions slaveholding, whether by 
her Constitution, her laws, or custom, slaveholding shall be 
legal in all the Territories, and in every State, and neither 
Congress nor Str.te nor Territorial Legislatures shall have 
the power to prohibit it. It is difficult to see how it can be 
lawfully excluucJ from a Territory or State, or on what just 
principle the purchase and importation of slaves is declared 



// 



piracy, if it be true that the national Constitution recog-nizes 
slaves as property; for article six of the Constitution of the 
United States declares that 

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States 
which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the 
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the 
judges *n every State shall be bound thereby, anything- in 
the laws and Constitution of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding-." 

Any legislative enactment, therefore, either by Terri- 
tories or States, excluding- the master with his slaves; or, if 
he enter a Territory or State, destroying- his property by 
depriving- him of it without compensation, must be clearly 
unconstitutional, as must also be the law which declares the 
slave trade piracy; for, if slaves are property by virtue of a 
constitutional provision, they are property, not only in the 
Territories and in all the States — Ohio as well as Missouri 
— but are also property in every part of the world wherever 
the flag of the country protects the lives and property of her 
citizens. The only exception that can possibly be made to 
this rule, provided the premises claimed be admitted, would 
be where our citizens, with their slave property, were tem- 
porarily residing in or passing through the territory of a 
foreign nation whose laws prohibited slavery. In such a 
country they probably could not hold them without express 
treaty stipulations. But if a citizen of the United States, 
under the protection of his country's flag, buys slaves in 
Africa, or in any other country, they are as legally his as 
though he purchased them in South Carolina, provided sla- 
very is not prohibited by law in the country where the pur- 
chase is made. And there being no law in Africa to prohibit 
slaveholding, but a usage recognizing it, the act of Congress 
that prohibits citizens of the United States from purchasing 
slaves there, or, if he purchase them, deprives him of his prop- 
erty without compensation, the moment he sets foot on the soil 
of his own State with them, and, in addition, inflicts the terri- 
ble penalty of death upon him for having in his possession 
persons who are recognized by the Constitution of his coun- 
try as property, is clearly unconstitutional. 



— 78 — 

The Supreme Court, however, did not dare, when decid- 
ing" the Dred Scott case, to declare, in so many words, that 
the States of this Union could not exclude slavery and pro- 
hibit its existence within their jurisdiction. The supporters 
of the slave power knew that the public mind of the North 
wss not prepared for such a declaration of their purposes. 
They therefore preferred to take the safer course, and first 
secure the endorsement and acquiescence of the people in the 
Dred Scott decision, knowing- that the logical result of that 
decision would legalize slavery in all the States and Terri- 
tories of the Republic, notwithstanding their State Constitu- 
tions and laws mig-ht prohibit it. 

Judge Nelson, of the majority of the Supreme Court, 
who concurred in the Dred Scott opinion, is the only judge 
who approached near enough to this point to give any inti- 
mation of what would be his views in a case such as Virginia 
has carried up from the Supreme Court of New York. In 
stating his views, he admitted that the several States of the 
Union had legislative power over all subjects, except in cases 
where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the 
Uni ced States. He adds : 

"The law of the State is supreme over the subject of 
slavery within its jurisdiction, except in cases where the 
power is restrained by the Constitution." 

And for this opinion he may be nominated at the Balti- 
more Convention on the ISth of next month. But if the Con- 
stitution of the United States recognizes slaves as property, 
the State cannot legally exclude them, for the national Con- 
stitution "is the supreme law of the land," and provides, in 
article four, section second, expressly that 

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of the citizens in the several 
States." 

This provision secures beyond question the right of every 
citizen of a State to pass through or reside in any State, 
with any and all descriptions of property recognized by the 
national Constitution, and all laws, enactments, and judicial 
decisions, of every State, destroying- or depriving- a citizen 
of any State of this rig-ht, is violative not only of the letter 



— 79 — 

but the spirit of the national Constitution, if slaves are 
property by virtue of any provision of that instrument. 
Hence I claim, and always have claimed, that either Jeffer- 
son and the Republican party are rig-ht on this question, or 
Calhoun and his disciples are right. There can be but two 
sides to the question. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that the Constitution 
of my country recognizes property in man. If I did, then, 
sir, I never could, and I never would, have laid my hand upon 
the Bible, and taken such an oath as I did when I became a 
member of this House, to support such a Constitution; and 
which, by becoming- a member of this body, I must either 
violate or vote to sustain and protect the right of the master 
to his slave property in all the Territories and in all the 
States of the American Union, by the whole power of the 
government — by the use of the army and navy and the purse 
of the nation. For, if such are his vested rights under the 
Constitution, I cheerfully concede it to be the duty of those 
who administer the government to give him adequate protec- 
tion, to the full extent of their power and juiisdiction. I 
would simply decline participating in such an Administra- 
tion; for I do not subscribe to the extraordinary statesmanship 
of the author of the Kansas-Nebraska act, which concedes 
the constitutional right of one man to property in the person 
of another; placing it exactly upon the same tenure of other 
property, and then admitting that he may be legally deprived 
of that property, without compensation, by what he terms 
the "uNFRiENDi^Y i.e;gisi.ation " of a Territorial Legislature, 
which even he does not pretend to claim can exercise sovereign 
power. 

Sir, if I could believe that our fathers who formed this 
Union, which I have been taught to love, and this Constitu- 
tion, which I have been taught to cling to as the palladium 
of our liberties — I say, if I could be made to believe that 
they intended to declare or did covertly and insidiously declare 
in any line or section of that Constitution that there could 
be property in man, then I would cease to cherish or venerate 
their memories, and, rather than hold a seat on this floor for 
a single hour, and by holding a seat here be obliged by my 



— 80 — 

oath to sanction and support the institution of human sla- 
very, I would become an alien to such a g-overnment, and 
refuse to be classed as a citizen with a people who, with the 
lig-ht of centuries beaming- upon them, persisted in the crime 
of upholding" a Constitution which recognized property in 
man. 

But, Mr. Chairman, it is claimed that the question as to 
whether the Constitution recog-nizes property in man or not, 
is no longer an open question; that it is a question which can- 
not with safety be submitted for determination to the people, 
or be intrusted to the individual opinions of their Represen, 
tatives in Congress, nor to the officers in any of the co-ordi- 
nate departments of the government, except the Supreme 
Court. 

It is said that the question has been, as the President 
informs us, "finality" and authoritatively settled for us by 
that "august TRiBUNAi,." Men of all parties, in office and 
out of office, are called upon by the party through whose 
instrumentality this decision was procured, to submit to and 
endorse it; and the demand is made and insisted on, that, by 
our votes and acts here, we shall conform the legislation of 
the country to this political decision, without regard to what 
may have been the action of the government or the opinions 
entertained by the leading statesmen of the past and present 
day upon this question. Thus, sir, if this theory is to be 
acquiesced in by the country, all individual responsibility in 
the government ceases; and I must swear, and every officer of 
the government must swear, to support the Constitution, not 
as I or they may understand it, but as a majority of the nine 
men who compose the Supreme Court understand and inter- 
pret it for us. And this, sir, is called Democracy in the year 
of grace 18601 

Sir, this kind of Democracy I repudiate, and appeal to 
the common sense of every man, and the record of our 
fathers, to prove that it is a spurious species of Democracy. 

Sir, when I took an oath to support the Constitution, I 
swore to support it as I understood it, and not as a majority 
of the Supreme Court may understand it, or any other num- 
ber of men, individually or collectively. On this point I 



■81 — 



believe the Supreme Court has no more ri^ht to control the 
action of members of Congress, than Congress has the rig-ht 
to interfere with and dictate a decision in any case before 
that tribunal for adjudication. 

In Colonel Benton's introductory note to his examination 
of the Dred Scott case, he uses the following- lang-uag-e, which 
I fully endorse: 

" Congress holds its powers from the Constitution, where 
every grant of authority is preceded by the words, ' shall 
have power to,' and to the support of which the members are 
sworn. The grant of power is in the Constitution, and the 
oath is to the Constitution; and it is written, that its words, 
always the same, may be always seen, and no excuse for dis- 
regarding them. The duty of the member, his allegiance, 
his fealty, is to the Constitution; and in performance of this 
duty, in the discharge of this allegiance, in the keeping of 
this fealty, he must be governed by the words of the instru- 
ment, and by the dictates of his own conscience. The mem- 
ber may enlighten himself, and should, with counsels of 
others; but as authority, as a rule of obligation, as a guide 
to conduct, the Constitution and the oath alone can govern; 
and were it otherwise, was Congress to look to judicial inter- 
pretation for its powers, it would soon cease to have any fixed 
rules to go by; would soon have as many diverse interpreta- 
tions as different courts, and, like the Holy Scripture in the 
hands of councils and commentators, would soon cease to be 
what its framers made it. 

"The power of the court is judicial — so declared in the 
Constitution, and so held in theory, if not in practice. It is 
limited to cases 'inlaw and equity;' and though sometimes 
encroaching upon political subjects, it is without right, with- 
out authority, and without the means of enforcing its decis- 
ions. It can issue no mandamus to Congress or the people, 
nor punish them for disregarding its decisions, or even attack- 
ing them. Far from being bound by their decisions. Congress 
may proceed criminally against the judges for making them, 
when deemed criminally wrong — one House impeach, and 
the other try, as done in the famous case of Judge Chase. 

"In assuming to decide these questions [constitutionality 
of the Missouri compromise, etc.], it is believed the court 
committed two great errors: first, in the assumption to try 
such questions; secondly, in deciding them as they did. 
And it is certain that the decisions are contrary to the uni- 
form action of all departments of the government — one of 
them for thirty-six years, and the other for seventy years — 
6 



— 82 — 

and in their effects upon each are equivalent to an alteration 
of the Constitution, by inserting- new clauses in it, which 
could not have been put in it at the time that instrument was 
made, nor at any time since, nor now." 

As long- ago as when a bill for the organization of the 
Territory of Oregon was under consideration of the Senate 
of the United States, an attempt was made to g-et this politi- 
cal question of the power of Congress over the subject of sla- 
very in the Territories in shape, so that at the proper time 
(that is, when the court was so constituted as to suit the 
slave barons) it could be carried up on an ag-reed case, and 
decided as the Dred Scott case was decided. 

Hon. John Bell, then a Senator of the United States 
from Tennessee, opposed the bill, and declared "that the 

COURT WAS THE WEAKEST OP THE THREE CO-ORDINATE 
BRANCHES OP THE GOVERNMENT — TOO WEAK TO COMMAND 
OBEDIENCE, OR TO SETTLE SUCH QUESTIONS; AND HE DREW THE 
INFERENCE THAT A DECISION OP IT BEFORE A TRIBUNAL SO FEE- 
BLE MIGHT BREAK DOWN THE COURT, WHILE IT FAILED TO 

SATISFY THE PUBLIC MIND." The result of the action of the 
Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case testifies how just and 
wise were the conclusions of that distinguished Senator. 

GeneralJackson, in his messag-e returning- the bill for the 
recharter of the Bank of the United States, replies, in the 
following well-timed remarks, to the claim then set up, that 
as the Supreme Court had decided the constitutionality of a 
similar charter creating- this same bank, it was the duty of 
Congress and the Executive to acquiesce in that decision: 

"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole 
g-round of this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate 
authorities of this g-overnment. The Congress, the Executive, 
and the Court, must, each for itself, be guided by its own opin- 
ion of the Constitution. Each public officer, who takes an 
oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support 
it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. 
It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of 
the Senate, and of the President, to decide upon the constitu- 
tionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to 
them for passage or approval, as it is of the supreme judges, 
when it may be brought before them for judicial decision. 
The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Con- 
gress than the opinion of Congress over the judges; and, on 



— 83 — 

that point, the President is independent of both. The au- 
thority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be per- 
mitted to control the Cong-ress or the Executive when acting- 
in their leg-islative capacities, but to have only such influence 
as the force of their reasoning- may deserve." 

Such, sir, were the opinions of two of the most illus- 
trious Democratic statesmen of the past g-eneration on this 
question of the power of one department of the government 
to bind or control by any decision of theirs the action of any 
other co-ordinate department, or of any member thereof. 
These opinions were entertained by nearly all the leading- 
statesmen until the slave barons obtained complete ascendency 
in the g-overnment, and by no one was these opinions more 
distinctly and fully maintained than by the present Chief 
Mag-istrate, as will be seen by the following- extract from a 
speech delivered by him in the Senate of the United States, 
on the 7th of July, 1841, which may be found in the tenth 
volume of the Cong-ressional Globe, No. 2, pag-e 163: 

"But even if the Judiciary had settled the question, I 
should never hold myself bound by their decision whilst act- 
ing- in a leg-islative ' character. Unlike the Senator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Bates] , I shall never consent to place the 
political rig-hts and liberties of this people in the hands of 
any judicial tribunal. It was, therefore, with the utmost 
astonishment I heard the Senator declare, that he considered 
the 'expositions of the Constitution by the Judiciary to be 
equally binding- upon us as the expositions of the moral law 
by the Saviour of mankind, contained in the Gospel, were 
upon Christians; and that these judicial expositions were of 
equal authority with the text of the Constitution. This, sir, 
is an infallibility which was never before claimed for any 
human tribunal; an infallibility which would convert free- 
men into abject slaves; an infallibility which would have ren- 
dered the famous sedition law as sacred as the Constitution 
itself, the Judiciary having- decided this law to be constitu- 
tional; and which would thus have annihilated, throug-hout 
the whole extent of this Union, the liberty of the press and 
the freedom of speech. No, sir, no; it is not the g-enius of 
our institutions to consider mortal men as infallible. 

"No man holds in hig-her estimation than 1 do the 
memory of Chief Justice Marshall; but I should never have 
consented to make even him the final arbiter between tte 
g-overnment and people of this country on questions of con- 
stitutional liberty. The experience of all ag-es and countries 



— 84 — 

has demonstratea that judges instinctively lean towards the 
prerog-atives of Government; and it is notorious that the 
court, during- the whole period which he presided over it, 
embracing" so many years of its existence, has inclined 
towards the hig-hest assertion of Federal power. That this 
has been done honestly and conscientiously, I entertain not 
a doubt." 

Sir, if the political opinions of a majority of the Supreme 
Court in this Dred Scott case are to assume the form of a 
decree, and be " irrkvocabi^e," as is claimed by the President 
in his annual messag-e, and all future political decrees of this 
tribunal are also to be "irrevocable;" and binding- upon the 
Democratic party, as is claimed by the leaders of this party, 
and this monstrous assumption of the slave barons is to be 
acquiesced in and sustained by the people, in the election of 
another pro-slavery President, then indeed will the revolu- 
tion inaugurated by Mr. Calhoun, less than twenty-five years 
ago, be complete. There will then no longer be either free 
Territories or free States in the American Union, but every 
State and every Territory, so far as the National Govern- 
ment can decree it, will be consecrated to the everlasting 
curse of human bondage. 

Now, sir, as to the propriety of intrusting this Judicial 
department of the government with the powers claimed for 
it by the present Administration party. On this point I pre- 
fer to quote from the speeches and writings of some of the 
most distinguished men who aided in the formation of the 
g-overnment. 

John Randolph, of Roanoke, said: 

' ' To me it appears that the power which has the right 
of passing, without appeal, on the validity of your laws, is 
your sovereign." . . . "But are we not as deeply interested 
in the true exposition of the Constitution as the judges can 
be? With all due deference to their talents, iz not Congress 
as capable of forming a correct opinion as th:ij are? Are 
not its members acting under a responsibility to public 
opinion, v/hich can and will check their aberrations from 
duty? Let a case, not an imaginary one, be stated : Con- 
gress violates the Constitution by fettering the press; the 
ju4icial corrective is applied to; far from protecting the 
libeirty of the citizen, or the letter of the Constitution, you 
find ! them outdoing the Legislature in zeal — pressing the 

( 



V 

\ 



•85 — 



common law of Kng-land to their service where the sedition 
law did not apply. Suppose your reliance had been alto- 
g-ether on this broken staff, and not on the elective principle; 
your press mig-ht have been enchained till doomsday, your 
citizens incarcerated for life; and where is your remedy?" 

Joseph H. Nicholson, of Marj^and, said: 

"By what authority are the judges to be raised above 
the law and above the Constitution? Where is the charter 
which places the sovereignty of this country in their hands? 
Give them the powers and the independence now contended 
for, and they will require nothing- more; for 5^our g-overnment 
becomes a despotism, and they become your rulers. They are 
to decide upon the lives, the liberties, and the property of 
your citizens; they have an absolute veto upon your laws, by 
decl'aring" them null and void at pleasure; they are to intro- 
duce at will the laws of a foreign country, differing" essen- 
tially with us upon the g-reat principles of g-overnment; and, 
after being" clothed with this arbitrary power, they are beyond 
the control of the nation, as they are not to be affected b}^ 
•any laws which the people by their representatives can pass. 
If all this be true, if this doctrine be established in the 
extent which is now contended for, the Constitution is not 
worth the time we are now spending upon it. It is, as it has 
been called by its enemies, mere parchment; for these judges, 
thus rendered omnipotent, may overleap the Constitution, 
and trample on your laws; they may laugh the Legislature 
to scorn, and set the nation at defiance. 

" To me it is a matter of indifference by what name you 
call them; I care not whether it be king's or judges. Arm 
them with power, and the danger is the same. For myself, 
I have no hesitation in declaring, that I would rather be sub- 
ject to the absolute sway of one tytant than to that of thirty; 
as I would prefer the mild despotism of China to the hated 
aristocracy of Venice, where the vilest wretch was encour- 
aged as a secret informer, and the lion's mouth was ever 
gaping" for accusation." 

Robert Williams, of North Carolina, said: 

"If this doctrine is to extend to the length gentlemen 
contend, then is the sovereignty of the g-overnment to be 
swallowed up in the vortex of the Judiciary. Whatever the 
other departments of the government may do, they can undo. 
You can pass a law, but they can annul it. Will not the 
people be astonished to hear that their laws depend upon the 
will of the judges, who are themselves independent of all 
law?" 



— 86 — 

Nathaniel Macon, of North. Carolina, on the same day 
said: 

"According- to some gentlemen, we were to reg-ard the 
Judiciary more than the law, and both more than the Consti- 
tution. It was a misfortune the judges were not equal in 
infallibility to the God who made them. The truth was, if 
the judge was a party man out of power, he would be a party 
man in. The office would not change human nature." 

Mr. Grayson, one of the best and ablest men in the old 
Republican party in the days of Jefferson, said, in speaking 
of the claim set up by the Federalists for the supreme power 
and purity of this court, that — 

" Such had been the argument in all countries where a 
concession of power had been in agitation. But that power 
ought to have such checks and balances as will prevent bad 
men from abusing- it. It ought to be granted on a supposi- 
tion that men will be bad, for it may eventually be so. With 
respect to the Judiciary, my grand objection is, that it will 
interfere with the State Judiciaries; there being no superin- 
tending central power to keep in order these two contending 
jurisdictions. This is an objection which is unanswerable in 
its nature. In England they have great courts, which have 
great and interfering powers. But the controi^ling power 
of Parliament, which is a central focus, corrects them. But 
here each party is to shift for itself. There is no arbiter or 
power to correct their interference. Recurrence can only be 
had to the sword. The State Judiciary is the principal 
defense we have. If its independence is to be destroyed, our 
only defensive armor is taken from us. Something has been 
said of the independence of the Federal Judges. I will only 
observe that it is on as corrupt a basis as the art of man 
CAN place; it." 

The Hon. James Barbour, United States Senator from 
Virginia, made a report on the 5th of December, 1820, on the 
petition of Matthew Lyon, asking for redress for wrongs suf- 
fered under the sedition act, which has been sustained by the 
Supreme Court. He said: 

" The committee entertain a high respect for the purity 
and intelligence of the Judiciar3\ But it is a rational 
respect, limited by a knowledge of the frailty of human 
nature, and the theory of the Constitution, which declares 
not only that judges may err in opinion, but also may com- 
mit crimes, and hence has provided a tribunal for the trial of 
offenders. 



87 



"In times of violent party excitement, ag"itating- the 
whole nation, to expect that judg-es will be entirely exempt 
from its influence, arg"ues a profound ig-norance of mankind. 
Although clothed with the ermine, they are still men, and 
carry into the judgment seat the passions and motives com- 
mon to their kind. Their decisions on party questions reflect 
their individual opinions, which frequentl}^ betray them 
unconsciously into error. To balance the judgment of a 
whole people by that of two or three men, no matter what 
may be their official elevation, is to exa.lt the creature of the 
Constitution above its creator, and to assail the foundation 
of our political fabric, which is, that the decision of the peo- 
ple is infallible, from which there is no appeal but to 
Heaven." 

Thomas Jefferson was one of the most earnest and able 
opponents of the doctrine that the court is supreme, and 
above all the co-ordinate departments of the government. In 
a letter to William T. Barry, dated Monticello, July 2. 1822, 
he said: 

"We already see the power installed for life, responsible 
to no authority (for impeachment is not even a scarecrow"), 
advancing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great ob- 
ject of consolidation. The foundations are already deeply 
laid, by their decisions, for the annihilation of constitutional 
State rights, and the removal of every check, every counter- 
poise, to the engulfing power of which themselves are to 
make a sovereign part. If ever this vast country is brought 
under a single government, it will be one of the most exten- 
sive corruption, indifferent, and incapable of a wholesome 
care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be 
borne, and 3'ou will have to choose between reformation and 
revolution. If I know the spirit of this countr}- , the one or 
the other is inevitable. Before the canker is become invet- 
erate, before its venom has reached so much of the body 
politic as to get beyond control, remedy should be applied. 
Let the future appointments of judges be for four or six 
years, and renewable by the President and Senate. This will 
bring their conduct, at regular periods, under revision and 
probation, and may keep them in equipoise between the 
general and special governments. We have erred in this 
point by copying England, where certainlj^it is a good thing 
to have the judges independent of the King. But we have 
omitted to copy their caution, also, which makes a judge 
removable on the address of both legislative houses. That 
there should be public functionaries independent of the 



— 88 — 

nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a solecism, in a 
republic, of the first order of absurdity and inconsistency." 

I must, however, close this valuable and instructive testi- 
mony, which mig-ht be multiplied indefinitely, and conclude 
by quoting- the characteristic answers g-iven by Franklin in 
the Federal Convention, when asked: "What means woui.d 

SECURE THE BEST, PUREST, AND ABLEST MEN FOR JUDGES?" 

Franklin arose and answered: "Immediate accountability 
TO THE PEOPLE." He was then asked: "What provisions 

WERE BEST CALCULATED TO PRESERVE THESE MEN PURE AND 

ABLE WHEN PLACED IN OFFICE?" To which Franklin at once 
responded: "Limitdd tenures, short periods in office, 
AND immediate accountability TO THE PEOPLE." This was 
Democracy in the days of Jefferson, Franklin, and Jackson. 
Contrast it with the Democracy of James Buchanan and the 
so-called Democratic party of 1860, and tell me if the doc- 
trines of ancient Federalism and the toaching-s of the Ad- 
ministration party to-day are not identical? Yet because, as 
individuals and as a party, we will not cease to venerate the 
teaching" and be g-uided by the advice of the Republicans of 
the Revolution, but choose rather to carry out in the adminis- 
tration of the g-overnment their convictions, which are also 
our own, v/e are denounced as faithless to the Constitution 
and the Union, by a class interest, who, by diplomacy and 
stealth, have obtained complete ascendency in the old Democ- 
racy; who, though cling-ing" to the name, have chang-ed its 
mission and purpose from one of republicanism and liberty 
to one of despotism and slavery. 

Mr. Chairman, this class interest have for years been as 
dominant in the g-overnment as they are to-day in the old Dem-= 
ocratic party; and so accustomed have they become to dictat- 
ing- to, and exacting- obedience of, their Northern allies, that 
they are not a little discomfited in finding that the members of 
the Republican party are made of sterner stuff, and that all 
Northern people are not such as Randolph described those to 
be who defended the institution of human slavery. 

Sir, I come not here as the representative of ra class in- 
terest, much less to be dictated to and told what my constitu- 
tional obligations are by the representatives of such an in- 
terest. I come as the representative of a free people, who 



•—89 — 

are as loyal to the Constitution and the Union as the same 
number of citizens in any other State, or in any Congres- 
sional district of the Nation — a constituency who will 
exact of any man whom they commission to represent them 
upon this floor, not only fidelity to the Constitution and 
Union, but, above all, fidelity to freedom — a constituency 
who will demand that no act or vote of their Representative 
shall be circumscribed by the narrow bounds that limit the 
gfeographical division of countries which make up his Con- 
gressional district; but that in every vote he gives here he 
will see to it that equal and exact justice is withheld from no 
locality or State in the Union. With this view of my duty, 
sir, and the obligations I assumed when the oath of office 
was administered to me, I cannot, and will not, knowingly 
give any vote that will impair or destroy the constitutional 
rights of a single individual, nor of any State. Although I 
am thus national, and represent a constituency who are 
equally national and conservative in their views, yet I am 
denounced, and the party to which I belong is denounced, as 
hostile to the Union. Sir, I deny it. Never has there a 
Republican uttered a disunion sentiment on this floor or else- 
where; and no Republican has either proposed or given a vote 
for any measure, here or elsewhere, that would not have com- 
manded the cordial support of Washington and Jefferson, 
and the early fathers of the Republic. But we are also 
denounced as a sectional party; and this charge of sectional- 
ism has been made, and so persistently made, b}^ the Adminis- 
tration party, both North and South, that some people in the 
country act as if they believed it; and by no one has this 
change been made with more vehemence than by Mr. Doug- 
las himself. 

In the Illinois campaign of 1858, this was the staple of 
Mr. Douglas's speeches; and Mr. Lincoln, our present gallant 
standard-bearer, in one of his masterly answers to Mr. Doug- 
las, after replying to and refuting the charge, made the fol- 
lowing remarkable prediction, which has been fully realized 
by the action of the Charleston Convention: 

"I ask his [Mr. Douglas's] attention, also, tu the fact, 
that by the rule of nationality, he is himself fast becoming 



— 90 — 

sectioual. I ask his attention to the fact, that his speeches 
would not g"o as current now, south of the Ohio River, as 
they have formerly gone there. I ask his attention to the fact, 
that he felicitates himself to-day, that all the Democrats of 
the free States are ag^reeing* with him. If he has not thought 
of this, I commend to his consideration the evidence of his 
own declaration, on this day, of his becoming- sectional too. 
I see it rapidly approaching-. Whatever may be the result 
of this ephemeral contest between Judg-e Doug-las and my- 
self, I see the day rapidly approaching- when his pill of sec- 
tionalism, which he has been thrusting- down the throats of 
Republicans for years past, will be crowded down his own 
throat." 

But it has been claimed that we were a sectional party, 
because we had no representative of the Republican party on 
this floor from a slaveholding- State, while the Administra- 
tion party have a few allies from the free States. Let me 
say, in all fairness, to Southern g-entlemen, that if the 
Northern Representatives on this floor, who support this 
Administration, openly avowed the pro-slavery doctrines in 
their own States which are daily uttered here by fou'r-fifths 
of their party, without rebuke from them, the places "which 
now know them would know them no more forever." A 
majority of those who are now upon this floor from the 
North, claiming- affiliation with the so-called Democratic 
part}^ obtained their places by as impassioned appeals to the 
people in favor of free institutions and free States as were 
ever made by Republicans, and by insisting- that they were 
not only hostile to slavery extension, but that they were even 
better friends of freedom than the most ultra members of the 
Republican party. But let me add, further, that if the 
Republicans, and those opposed to slaver}- in the free States, 
were to forbid, by law and by mob violence, as successfully as 
Southern States have done, the free exercise of the elective 
franchise, and the discussion, either throug-h the press or on 
the stump, of the principles of the so-called Democratic part}^ 
you would not have, to-day, an ally upon this floor, except, 
perhaps, from one or two districts, in all the Northern 
States. Only because of this toleration and respect for the 
constitutional oblig-ations which are binding- alike upon every 
State, are there any supporters of the Administration party 



91 — 



upon this floor from the entire North. If the same system of 
tyranny and terrorism prevailed ag-ainst the minority in the 
free States that in the Southern States is universal toward^:, 
us, no Chief Magistrate could ag^ain be elected, representing* 
the special interest of a sectional party, as was done in 1856„ 

It is only our toleration of the freedom of speech and of 
the press that permits even the existence of a party to-day 
among- us, which in the name of Democracy, sends Repre- 
sentatives here who covertly support, apolog-ize for, and 
defend the most extravag-ant demands of the slave barons. 
Yet the charg-e is made and repeated, ag-ain and ag-ain, upon 
this floor, that we are not only a sectional party, but thct we 
disreg-ard and trample upon the Constitution which wc are 
sworn to support. I ask. g-entlemen to make their charges 
more specific, and not to deal so indiscriminately in gener- 
alities. I ask them to point out the proposed policy, or 
any vote that has been given by the Representatives of the 
Republican party, as a body, in this House or in any Congress 
since the Republican party was organized, that is violative 
of the constitutional rights of any section of the Union. 
I know of no vote they have given, or of any proposition 
they have made, that would not have commanded the 
support of Washington and Franklin, of Jay and Jefferson, 
of Adams and Madison ; and I am content to follow in the 
footsteps of such men, and accept their interpretation of the 
Constitution, rather than the so-called interpretation of the 
Supreme Court. Sir, indiscriminate, wholesale charges, such 
as have been repeated with so much vehemence upon this' 
floor, come with a- poor grace from the Representatives of 
States that openly trample upon and disregard not onl}^ the 
plainest provisions of the national Constitution, but the 
obligations due from the citizens of one civilized country to 
the citizens of another. 

The Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and 
of the press, and provides expressly that ' ' the citizens of each 
State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States ; " and are not these plain 
provisions of the Constitution daily violated throughout the 
entire South? Can a citizen of any State speak or publish 
the sentiments of Washington and Jefferson and Henr}'- upon 



92- 



the question of slavery in the Southern States? Can he even 
reside in or pass throug"h those States, and be free from 
dang-er or of personal violence at the hands of infuriated mobs? 
The history of the country for the past few years gives a full 
answer to the question. In many of the States, the severest 
leg-islative enactments have been passed ag-ainst the liberty 
of speech and of the press; the United States mails are even 
rifled and private correspondence subjected to a censorship 
not tolerated in the monarchies of Europe. States that were 
most violent in their hostility to the alien and sedition laws 
have, by a strang-e combination of events, become the enactors 
of sedition laws themselves, and mob violence has become so 
common, that it is now reg-arded as the settled policy of the 
dominant party in the South, wherever they have the numer- 
ical force thus to punish and overawe their political opponents. 
But not only are the plainest provisions of the national 
Constitution thus violated, and the comity due from one State 
to another, and from the citizen of one State to the citizen of 
another, disreg-arded, but laws are absolutely passed making- 
odious discriminations in favor of persons who are not 
citizens of the United States. Thus, if a steamer of Massa- 
chusetts or New York sail into Charleston or New Orleans, 
having- on board colored persons, who are free, and, hj the 
laws of the States named, are citizens, they are subject to 
police reg-ulations whose severity has no parallel in any 
civilized nation on the face of the earth. This is where they 
are citizens of one of the States of the Union, and have a 
constitutional guaranty for protection. A special provision 
is made, however, to exempt all colored persons who are 
subjects of Great Britain and France, and perhaps other 
foreign governments. Thus an odious and unconstitutional 
distinction is deliberately made against our own citizens, and 
in favor of the citizens of foreign nations. But, worse than 
this, unconstitutional enactments are passed and enforced, 
which consign free citizens of the Northern States, guilty 
of no crime, to hopeless slavery. The laws of Congress, 
made in conformity with our treaty stipulations and the 
enlightened sentiment of the civilized world, punishing the 
African slave trade as piracy, are openly disregarded, and 
the power of the National Government declared to be impo- 



— 93 — 

tent ; ana yet scarcely a speech is made upon this floor by 
members from these States in which they do not proclaim 
their devotion to law and order, the decision of courts, and 
their fidelity to the Constitution and the Union, which simply 
means obedience to such laws as they desire enacted, sub- 
mission to such decisions of courts as they can dictate, and 
fidelity to the Constitution and the Union so long* only as 
they are intrusted by the people with the administration of 
the g-overnment and the interpretation of the Constitution. 
When this ceases, as I trust and believe it will on the 4th of 
March, 1861, their fidelity to law will cease, their love of the 
Union will cease, and their new-born veneration for that 
*' AUGUST tribunal" of which we have heard so much of 
late — the Supreme Court — will also cease ; and they will be, 
ip their threats are to be put into execution, in open 
rebei^ivion against the government, and enemies of the 
Constitution and the Union. 

But, Mr. Chairman, it is also charg-ed that because, as a 
party we are opposed to the extension and nationalization of 
slavery in the Republic, and condemn the inhuman laws 
enacted for the maintenance and perpetuity of that institution, 
we must of necessity favor the, equality of the neg-ro race with 
our own, and desire to see them intermarry and become one 
people. Sir, this cry of "negro equality" is about all the 
arg-ument now left the Northern allies of the slave barons, to 
be used in the free States in their appeals to their constitu- 
ents, when justifying- themselves for the support they 
uniformly give the slave interest in Congress. 

Now, sir, what are the facts on this point of negro 
equality? First, the Republican party oppose the further 
spread of slavery and the increase of political power in the 
hands of slaveholders, because they believe the enslavement 
of one human being by another, or of one race by another, to 
be one of the greatest wrongs that man or government can 
inflict. They do not desire to see this government in the 
hands of men who will use it to favor and strengthen such a 
policy. Second, they believe the enslavement of any race by 
another, injures the race who enslaves, as well as their 
victims ; and that the contact of any free people with slaves 
demoralizes and degrades the tree people. In support of this 



94 



proposition, I appeal to the history of the world for six thou- 
sand years to sustain me. But if all the past were a blank ; 
if all history were silent, and slavery was unknown to man 
until the inauguration of this g-overnment, and all we know 
about it and its blasting" and blighting effects was what we 
have learned, by sad experience, in the United States, I think, 
even here, we would have just cause to desire not only its 
exclusion from all new States and Territories, but its final 
extinction on every foot of soil over which our national Con- 
stitution extends. This was the hope, the expectation and 
the prayer, of the illustrious men who achieved our independ- 
ence and made our Constitution. 

Sir, the charge of "negro equai^ity" and "amalgama- 
tion " comes with a very bad grace from either the Northern 
or Southern wing of this pro-slavery party ; and, in order 
that I may not be misquoted or misunderstood in what I pro- 
pose to offer on this point, let me say, right here, that while 
I shall condemn in unmistakable terms the institution of 
slavery as a social and political system, and the crime of 
amalgamation, which is inseparable from it, I exempt, with 
pleasure, from any sweeping denunciation which I may make, 
thousands of good and true men, who find themselves born 
to this inheritance, and whose whole lives give assurance to 
the world that their hearts are better than the system. 
Intrust a class of men in any society or government with 
absolute power over a servile race, and the bad men will not 
only use it and abuse it, as I shall show, but, by their clamor- 
ous cry of danger to the State, will perpetrate and give sanc- 
tion to outrages that good and true men will be powerless to 
prevent. It is not that Southern men and slaveholders are 
worse than other men, but because they are no better, that it is 
unsafe, if it were not in itself an indefensible wrong, to 
intrust them with absolute power over any part of the human 
race. 

And now, sir, what are the practical effects of slaver}^ 
as exhibited in the working out of this much-talked-df and 
universally-denounced negro equality and amalgamation of 
the races? Has not slavery corrupted the blood, to say noth- 
ing of the morals, of millions in the South? If it has not, 
whence spring the octoroons, the quadroons, and the myriads 



— 95 — 

who are ting"ed with the blood of the dominant race, in every 
Southern State? Sir, it is in the land of slavery you must 
look for amalg"amation, and that negro equality, which is in- 
separable from such amalg-amation. But for a neg-ro equality 
all over the South that must be nameless here, there would 
be no blue-eyed, lig-ht-haired octoroons, the children and 
descendants of African slaves, in every Southern city, and in 
every neig-hborhood, appealing- to the liberal, as we see them 
almost daily in this capital, asking- for aid to purchase their 
rig-ht to that which God g-ave not only them, but to all the 
human race, the right to themselves. Sir, than Mormon 
polygamy, about which even Southern Representatives pro- 
fess to be so shocked, this crime of Southern amalgamation is 
worse ; for while the Mormon system is voluntary, and must 
have the sanction of a public church ordinance, and the full 
and unqualified assent of the first wife, and the children be 
entitled to all the rights of protection and property which 
are secured to the children of the first marriage, this South- 
ern system is an involuntary, forced, and revolting concubi- 
nage, from which there is no escape, if the victim desires it, 
there being no law to punish the aggressor. And, sir, the 
offspring of this criminal negro equality are slayes. If there 
were laws to punish such crimes, the testimony of slaves 
could not with safety be admitted; for if such were the case, 
and the penalty attached should be, as it ought to be, the 
liberation of all slave children whose fathers were white 
men, together with their mothers, then Wilmot provisos 
would be unnecessary, and further opposition to slavery 
would be a useless occupation with the people of the North. 
The institution would fall by the fascinating graces and 
seductive power of these black dulcineas, by whose irresisti- 
ble charms the aristocracy and plebeians of the South alike 
appear to be captivated. 

Sir, it is only in the land of slavery where this crime is 
tolerated. There it is unrestrained. There alone it is cher- 
ished; and if slavery continues, it must become universal, 
blighting and corroding the life-blood of the nation, by eradi- 
cating from the heart of man all love for his own offspring, 
and filling the land with slaves who are the children of the 
dominant race. How frightful has been the progress and 



— 96 — 

increase of this desolating- and destroying* evil! Sir, do you 
suppose there is one Southern State, nay, one Congressional 
district in all the slave States of this Union, in which slave- 
holders do not own and sell their own children? where they 
do not see them toil daily beneath the lash of a taskmaster, 
and see them driven in coffle g"ang"s to the Southern market — 
their sons to the shambles, and their daug-hters to the hells 
of Southern cities? But it may, and probably will, be 
claimed that these octoroons and quadroons are not the chil- 
dren of the masters, but they are the children of the poor 
whites. I care not, Mr. Chairman, whose they may be; the 
fact of their existence is evidence of the crime; and the fur- 
ther fact that the law-makers, who are always slaveholders 
in all the Southern States, do not punish the crime by law, 
as they would if they desired to restrain it, is certainly a cir- 
cumstance not very favorable to their own innocence. 

Sir, g-o into any colored church in any Southern city, and 
a majority of the audience will be of the mixed race, many 
of them so white that it would require a close inspection to 
detect that they were tinctured with neg-ro blood. 

Sir, how long" do you suppose this mixed race will remain 
in servitude without a strug-g-le for their freedom? It is im- 
possible that it should be long", for many of them to-day are 
conceded to be smarter than their reputed fathers. If this 
unrestrained Southern neg-ro equality is to be not only con- 
tinued, but encourag"ed, a hundred years will not elapse — if 
the importation of fresh Africans can be effectually stopped 
— before the last unmixed African slave will have disappeared 
before this bleaching" process of Southern amalg-amation. 
In forty years there will be over ten million slaves and free 
colored people in the present slave States, if they continue to 
increase in the same ratio that they have done for the past 
sixty years. At a moderate estimate, five million will then 
be of the mixed race, many of them so white, as advertise- 
ments for runaway slaves often inform us is the case now, that 
" they would readily pass for white persons." In fifty or sixty 
years more they will have increased, at the same ratio, to at 
least twent)' million, and the unmixed Africans can be easily 
■counted. In less than one hundred years from to-day, the 



— 97 



slave population will have increased to near thirty million, 
numbering about eig-hty to every slaveholder, and almost, if 
not quite, half of these slaves will be so white that they can- 
not be distinguished from white persons. How long-, I again 
ask, can such a servile population of thirty million be kept in 
subjection by less than half a million masters? 

Sir, if so great and good a man as Wesley could denounce 
this institution to the Christian people of the world as " the 
sum of all villainies," I, who have witnessed some of its bru- 
tality and felt its tyranny, may, without impropriety, pro- 
nounce it, as I now do, to be the sum of all barbarisms, for 
whose continuance and further spread over the Territories of 
the nation the people of the United States, both North and 
South, will be held responsible in history and before God. 

Sir, no lover of his country and the human race can con- 
template this picture without a shudder. 

Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, and 
all that is being said and written on this subject, to induce 
the slave barons to pause and take a practical view of this 
subject, they not only refuse, but rush madly on, disregard- 
ing alike the teachings of the fathers and the warnings of 
history. And to-day they claim that slavery is a benefit to 
the country, and a blessing to the slave and master, as well 
as to the non-slaveholding whites. 

Senator Hammond, the leader of the South Carolina oli- 
garchy, in speaking of the manner in which the poor whites 
of that State obtained a subsistence, a year or two since, did 
not draw quite so flattering a picture of their happy condition 
as has been done by Southern members on this floor. Mr. 
Hammond says: 

" They [the poor whites] obtain a precarious subsistence 
by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plundering 
fields or folds, and too often by what is in its efi^ects far 
worse — trading with slaves, and seducing them to plunder 
for their benefit." 

And yet we are told that this is a desirable condition of 
society, and that slave and poor white alike are satisfied with 
it. In speaking of this subject, one of the honorable mem- 

7 



— 98 — 

bers from South Carolina, in a speech delivered before the 
org-anization of the House, boasted not only of the happiness 
of the people, but of the contentment and fidelity of the 
slaves to their masters, as also of the loyalty of the poor 
whites of the South to the institution of slavery; and stated 
that, out of a larg-e number who volunteered to g-o to Vir- 
g-inia and aid Governor Wise during the John Brown troub- 
les, but five or six were slaveholders, and instanced this fact 
as proof of their loyalty. If it be true that they are thus 
loyal — and I do not intend to controvert the fact as stated — 
why is it that this class of poor whites are not permitted to 
read whatever they may prefer to read, as the slaveholders do 
themselves? 

I will say nothing- about the penal enactments prohibit- 
ing", by fine, the lash, and imprisonment, any and all classes of 
persons, white or colored, whether Christian or not, from 
teaching their slaves to read or write; for such laws are in- 
separable from the system. It is well known that the loyalty 
of the slaves can only be depended on while they are deprived 
of the power of communicating with each other. But if the 
poor whites are loyal, why are they also proscribed? Why 
are they deprived of the pleasure and profit which they would 
derive from reading that stanch old Democratic paper, the 
New York Evening Post? or that invaluable paper, the New 
York Tribune? or that first of all religious journals, the 
New York Independent? Why is it that they are forbidden 
to read such a book as Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Octoroon, 
or any paper, whether Republican or independent of party, 
that is unfriendly to slavery, or even to receive and read pri- 
vate letters from the free States, unless first subjected to a 
censorship by the privileged class? There can be but one 
answer to these questions; and that is, a distrust on the part 
of the ruling class of the fidelity of the poor whites, and fear 
of their political power, should they unite, as they might do 
at any time, and take possession of all the Southern State 
Governments, and administer them for the benefit of the 
whole people, instead of permitting them to be administered, 
as they are to-day, exclusively for the benefit of a class 
interest. 



— 99 



It appears, from the facts^ elicited during" the extraordi- 
narj discussion which was indulg-ed in here by Southern 
Representatives before the org-anization, that many of them 
had read and examined with care, some two years ag"o, this 
incendiary Helper book. Now, if they had the rig-ht to pos- 
sess and read such books and papers, why have not their con- 
stituents, the poor whites, the same rig-ht, by whose votes 
most of these g-entlemen come here, for the poor whites consti- 
tute a majority of the electors in all the Southern States? Sir, 
there are reasons, and g-ood reasons, why they should not, if 
the policy of the privileg-ed class is to be sustained and con- 
tinued. The poor whites of the South, in whose hands, if 
united, resides the political power, must be kept divided, as 
they are to-day; and in order to keep them successfully 
divided, and fightings their supposed enemy, the free neg-ro, 
and those who favor the prohibition of slavery in the Terri- 
tories, they must be kept in ignorance. Hence, all that was 
said, and |so vehemently said, in denunciation of Helper and 
his book, was said, not because it was an appeal to the slaves 
or free colored people to rise in rebellion, but because its 
arg"uments and appeals were addressed to the poor whites of 
the South by one of their own number. Mr. Pryor, of Vir- 
g-inia, in speaking- of the characteristics of Helper's book, 
said: 

*' "What is the characteristic feature of that work? Some 
g"entlemen have stated that they have not read it. I have 
read it, and read it some two years ago. These gentlemen 
who have signed it tell us that they never saw it. I have 
read it, and know all about it; and let me tell you what the 
characteristic distinction and feature of that work is; let me 
inform the candidate for Speaker upon the other side of the 
House [Mr. Sherman], who seems ignorant of the produc- 
tion he endorses. It is not tnat the author proposes that the 
North shall come down in an avalance of invasion, and de- 
stroy the tie that subsists between the slave and the master. 
No, sir; that is familiar talk. Nor is it the literary execution 
of the work; for I never read a book which is more feeble in 
conception and inartistic in execution. It is unworthy of 
respectable criticism." . . . 

"But the peculiarity of that book was, that Mr. Helper, 
for the first time in the history of this country, had invoked, 
with all the power of passion, with all his limited resources 
of rhetoric, the non-slaveholders of the South to rise 



100 -- 



IN REBELLION AGAINST THE SLAVEHOLDERS. That was the 

peculiar merit of his book. 

"Now, the candidate for Speaker upon the other side 
[Mr. Sherman] told us yesterday explicitly, and cited his 
political record as proof of it, that he would not urg-e the 
Federal Government, nor the people of the North, to inter- 
fere with the relations of master and slave. I tell him now, 
asfain, that that is not the characteristic of the book." 

Here, sir, is disclosed the real point of dang-er to the rul- 
ing- class of the South — the fear of a rebellion on the part of the 
poor whites whom they now claim as loyal subjects. A rebel- 
lion, sir. Can a people, from whom all political authority 
emanates in a Republic, be classed as rebels, for desiring- to 
chang-e, in a peaceful and constitutional manner, their law- 
makers? If not, from whose rule is it feared the poor whites 
will rebel? Their own rule? No, sir; but a"REBELLiON against 
THE SLAVEHOLDERS," says Mr. Pryor. This is the fear, this the 
danger, the bare contemplation of which makes all slavedom 
mad. This is the power before which they tremble; and well 
they may, for despite their sedition laws and prisons and mobs, 
the time is coming- when God's truth cannot long-er be shut out 
from the minds and hearts of the non-slaveholders and poor 
whites; and when that time comes, their power shall ag-ain 
be felt, and their voices ag-ain be heard in these halls in de- 
fense of liberty, where now are only heard the voices of the 
representatives of a class interest, defending- and justifying- 
slavery. 

Sir, I look upon the loyalty of the slave as a suspicious 
kind of loyalty, where it is necessary not only to keep them 
in ignorance, but subject to the most rigorous laws and in- 
human physical punishments, in order safely to hold them in 
any kind of subjection. And I think the loyalty of the poor 
white man equally uncertain, when there is no safety or 
security that he will not combine against you, unless you 
shut out from his mind and conscience all arguments in 
favor of justice, and all appeals to his humanity. With this 
kind of censorship, with this kind of domination, with this 
kind of despotism, are the slaves and the poor whites of the 
South alike made loyal. The poor whites of Poland and 
Hungary are also called loyal by the Emperor of Austria. 



101 



The poor whites of France are called loyal by the usurper of 
the 2d of December. The poor whites of the South are 
called loyal because of their obedience to the mandates of 
the ruling- class; and they may be, and I believe they are, to- 
day, more loyal than the poor whites of the European despo- 
tisms to which I have referred. They hug" the chains that 
drag" them down, and volunteer with alacrity to sacrifice their 
lives at the bidding- of this privileg-ed class. The slave 
interest intend to keep them loyal; and in order to be doubly 
sure that they shall remain so, their school-books for what 
few schools they have, their literature, their political jour- 
nals, their so-called relig-ious periodicals and Christian teach- 
ers, are permitted to talk and preach and pray — if at all 
about slavery — only in favor of its divinity and its blessing", 
within the hearing" of the slaves and poor whites alike. 
This is the kind of loyalty that can be found in despotisms 
only; the kind of loyalty which you exact of your Northern 
allies. It is the kind of loyalty, let me assure you, which 
cannot flourish in the free States; and I do not believe it can 
endure many years in the slave States. 

An end will and must come to such despotism, peaceably 
and constitutionally, I hope ; but it will come. No human 
hand can stay it. No g"overnment ever has existed perma- 
nently, or ever can remain stable, that tramples deliberately 
and with impunity upon the rig"hts of humanity and the laws 
of God. While I cannot adopt, to the fullest extent, the 
declaration of the g"reat Irish liberator " that no revolu- 
tion WAS WORTH ONE DROP OF HUMAN BLOOD " — because that 
would be a condemnation of our own Revolution, and of all 
just revolutions — yet I can say, with all my heart, that I 
desire a revolution of peace ; but, peaceable or bloody, I 
believe, with Jefferson, that it will come. The millions of 
the South who are crushed and groaning" beneath this 
despotism — the poor whites, as well as the free and slave 
colored, from the octoroon to the quadroon and the unmixed 
black, if there should be any of the latter then remaining" — will 
one day be compelled to strike hands and shake this despotism 
off ; or the poor whites will first be disfranchised, then classed 
socially, as the}- are to-day, to a g-reat extent, with the 



102 



servile race, and at last they and their children will be melted 
down in the slave population forever. 

That this is the ultimate purpose of the ruling- class of 
the South, may be fairly adduced from the fact, that they do 
not hesitate to-day at enslaving Indians, Mexicans, Chinamen, 
and even whites of American birth and unmixed blood. 
Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, does not scruple 
publicly to denominate free white laborers as the "mud-sii.ls 
OF SOCIETY ; " and more than twenty years ag"o asserted, on 
the floor of Congress, "that the South had less trouble 

WITH THEIR SLAVES THAN THE NORTH HAD WITH HER FREE 
LABORERS, AS THE RECORDS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND THE 
NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS OF NORTHERN MOBS FULLY SHOWED." 

Senator Mason, of Virginia, in speaking of the free States, 
calls them " servile States," because their laborers are free 
men. I might quote from many leading men and public 
speakers in the South, if time would permit, to show that 
these men have no moral or religious convictions against 
enslaving any race, and that, having no principles to deter 
them from the commission of such a wrong, all they want is 
the power, and they would reduce, without hesitation, the 
entire laboring population, of whatever race or color, to 
bondage. 

Twenty-five years ago, this anti-Democratic doctrine, 
justifying the enslavement of the laboring man, of whatever 
race or color, was publicly proclaimed by many of the ruling 
men of the South, of both the old political parties. Benjamin 
Watkins Leigh, a leading Whig statesman of Virginia, 
declared, in a speech in the Virginia Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1829 (before the anti-slavery agitation had commenced 
in the North), that — 

" There must be some peasantry ; as the country fills up 
there must be more — that is, men who tend the herds and dig 
the soil, who have neither real nor personal capital of their 
own, and who earn their bread b}' the sweat of their brows. 
I ask gentlemen to say whether the}" believe those who depend 
on their labor for their daily subsistence can, or ever do, enter 
into political affairs ? They never do, never will, never can." 

No distinction of races or color is made here. But the 
white laborers were especially referred to, as the argument 



— 103 — 

was ag-ainst extending- the rig-ht of suffrag-e to that class. 
True, he did not then propose to reduce them to chattelhood, 
but it is evident that he reg-arded them as belong-ing- to 
the servile population, with no more rig-hts than negro slaves. 
Mr. Pickens, of South Carolina, in a speech in this House, 
in 1836, said : 

"I lay down this proposition as universally true, that 
there is not, and never was, a society organized under our 
political system for a period long- enoug-h to constitute an 
era, where one class would not, practically and substantiallj^ 
own ANOTHER CLASS, in some shape or form. Let not gen- 
tlemen FROM THE North start at this truth. We are yet 
a people in our infancy. Society has not yet been pressed 
down to its classifications. Let us live throug-h an era, and 
we shall discover this great truth. All society settles down 
into a classification of capitalists and laborers. The former 

WILL own the latter." 

The arg-ument of Mr. Pickens is undoubtedly correct, if 
this g-overnment, by special leg-islation, is to build up and 
sustain an oligarchy of slaveholders, who own all their 
laborers. The "pressing-down" process to which Mr. 
Pickens refers has been going on at a frightful rate since the 
delivery of this speech. 

Governor McDuffie, of South Carolina, the bosom friend 
of Calhoun, and one of the most distinguished Democrats of 
that State, in a message to the Legislature, in 1836, said, in 
speaking of the subject of slavery: 

"No community has ever existed without it, and we may 
confidently assert, never will. In the very nature of things, 
there must be classes of persons to discharge all the different 
of&ces of society, from the highest to the lowest. Some of 
these offices are regarded as degrading, though they must 
and will be performed. Hence those manifold forms of de- 
pendent servitude, which produce a sense of inferiority on 
the part of the servants. Where these offices are per- 
formed BY members of the political COMMUNITY, A DANGER- 
OUS ELEMENT IS INTRODUCED INTO THE BODY POLITIC. Hence 

the alarming tendency to violate the rights of property by 
agrarian legislation, which is beginning to manifest itself in 
the older States, where universal suffrage prevails, with- 
out DOMESTIC slavery; a tendency that will increase, in the 
progress of society, with the increasing inequality of wealth. 
No government is worthy of the name, that does not protect the 



— 104- 

rig-hts of property; and no enlig-ntened people will long- sub- 
mit to such a mockery. Hence it is, that, in the older coun- 
tries, different political orders are established to effect this 
indispensable object, and it will be fortunate for the non- 
slaveholding- States if they are not, in less than a quarter 
OF a century, driven to the adoption of a similar institution, 
or to take refug-e from robbery and anarchy under a military 
despotism." . . . " In A word, the institution of slavery 

SUPERSEDES THE NECESSITY OF AN ORDER OP NOBILITY, and the 

other appendages of a hereditary syst-em of g-overnment. If 
our slaves were emancipated, and admitted, bleached or 
UNBLEACHED (i. c, white or colored), to an equal participa- 
tion in our political privileg"es, what a commentary should 
we furnish upon the doctrines of the emancipationists, and 
what a revolting- spectacle of republican equality should we 
exhibit to the mockery of the world! No rational man would 
consent to live in such a state of society, if he could find a 
refuge in any other. Domestic slavery, therefore, instead 
of being- a political evil, is the corner-stone op our repub- 
lican edifice." 

In a work called " Sociolog-y for the South; or the failure 
of Free Society," published in 1854, by Mr. George Fitzhugh, 
of Richmond, Virginia, may be found the following- declara- 
tion in favor of white slavery: 

" Slavery protects the weaker members of society, just as 
do the relations of parents, g-uardian and husband, and is as 
necessary, as natural, and almost as universal, as those rela- 
tions. 

"Ten years ago, we became satisfied that slavery, black 
or white, was rig-ht and necessary. We advocated this doc- 
trine in very many essays." 

Some three years ag-o, the Richmond Enquirer, then and 
now one of the leading- organs of the so-called Democratic 
party, in discussing- and defending the right to enslave any 
race, said: 

"While it is far more obvious that negroes should be 
slaves than whites — for they are only fit to labor, and not to 
direct — yet the principle of slavery is itself right, and 

DOES not depend ON DIFFERENCE OF COMPLEXION." 

In another article on this same subject, this Democratic 
(?) paper declared: 

"Freedom is not possible without slavery. Every 
civil polity and every social system implies gradation of rank 



— 3 05 - 

and condition. In the States op the South, an aristocracy 
OF white men is based on negro slavery; and the absence 

OF negro slavery WOULD BE SUPPLIED BY WHITE MEN." 

In every slave State, I believe, without exception, the 
fate of all offspring- born of the servile race is made by statute 
to depend on the condition of the mother. If she be a slave, 
her children, though white, are also slaves. The laws and 
judicial decisions of all the slave States on this point are uni- 
form. From this law of the slave master there is and can be 
no escape, to the latest generation. Hence the advocates of 
this system do not hesitate to defend the enslavement of all 
weak and defenseless races, and even boldly to justify the 
enslavement of white men. 

This is the log"ical result of the American slave system. 
If slavery should be confined by law to the unmixed African, 
the slave master understands that in time, by the mere force 
of Southern amalgamation, there would come an end to the 
existence of this institution. To avoid this, the slave master 
throws around his victim such safeguards in the shape of 
legislative enactments as will effectually secure to himself, 
as property, all children born of his female slaves, whether 
they are white or colored. 

If the deliberate intention of slave masters is not to 
reduce to chattelhood all black and white persons whom they 
can by such laws enslave, why are not these barbarous 
statutes repealed, and laws passed making amalgamation a 
crime, which shall punish not only the wrongdoer, be he 
master or not, but which shall work the liberation of all chil- 
dren born of slave mothers who have a " visible admixture" 
of white blood in their veins, and also the immediate uncon- 
ditional freedom of every such slave mother? 

In 1839, Henry Clay delivered a speech in the Senate of 
the United States, which may be found in the Appendix to 
the Congressional Globe, page 358, in which he said: 

*' It is frequently asked, what is to become of the African 
eacE, among us? Are they forever to remain in bondage?" 

He thus answers his own question: 

"Taking the aggregates of the two races, the European 
is constantly, though slowly, gaining upon the African 



— 106 — 

portion.'" . . . "In the progress of time, some one hundred 
and fifty or two hundred years hence, but few vestig-es of the 
BLACK race will remain among- our posterit3'." 

In one hundred or one hundred and fifty years, then, 
according- to Mr. Clay, the "black race" will have disap- 
peared before the bleaching- process of Southern amalg-ama- 
tion, and "our posterity" — the descendants of slave mothers 
— thoug-h white, and having- in their veins the best blood of 
the dominant race, are not only'to remain slaves forever, but 
all laboring- men, without reg-ard to color or birth, who can 
be, are to be reduced to chattelhood. And this is to be the 
final consummation of the barbarism of American slavery, 
unless the purposes and policy of the slave barons are defeated 
by the triumph of the Republican part}-. 

And this doctrine of the rig-ht to enslave any race has 
not been, and never will be, repudiated by the present 
Democratic party in the South. Mr. Chairman, I ask the 
honest portion of those who, in the free States, brought this 
Administration party into power, how much longer they 
intend, by their money and suffrages, to aid in keeping the 
government of this country in the hands of an oligarchy who 
in the sacred name of Democracy, preach and practice such 
despotism as this? If the independent freemen of the nation 
do not rally to the standard of Lincoln and Hamlin, and give 
us deliverance this year, then I know not when it will come. 
I have an abiding faith, however, that we shall triumph; 
and that the day cannot be far distant when this deliverance, 
by a popular revolution, must come, if the enslavement of 
the poor whites of the South is to be averted. When it does 
come, I pray Heaven that it may be a revolution of the ballot- 
box instead of the cartridge-box — a revolution which, while 
it brings deliverance to the slave, shall not blast the land 
with universal ruin and the bloody horrors of a St. Domingo. 
For among a homogeneous people, of one language, living 
under a republican form of government, where a majority 
may, if they choose, control, I think the true way, the surer 
and better way, to secure the abolition of a great wrong, is 
to appeal to the hearts and consciences of those who have 
the constitutional power to act, and whose voice and votes 



— 107 — 

will not be wanting- to secure this result, whenever their 
judg-ments are convinced. 

Wherever these constitutional rights cannot be enjoyed, a 
revolution by force is not only indispensable, but a duty. For 
the purpose of averting- such a revolution, with all its attendant 
horrors, the poor whites and non-slaveholders of the South ask 
for the freedom of speech and the press, and the rig-ht to 
the ballot. But this is denied them in almost every Southern 
State; and not only denied them, but the persons of those 
who ask it, and attempt to exercise it, are not safe from vio- 
lence and death. To this open and undisg-uised violation of 
the national Constitution, for which Southern Representa- 
tives on this floor profess such veneration and reverence, may 
be added the violation by this class of all covenants, com- 
pacts, and compromises, with the people of the North; and 
those rig-hts which are more sacred and above all compromises 
and Constitutions — the rig-hts of humanity — are everywhere 
within their borders disreg-arded and trampled in the dust. 
Sir, the representatives of this class interest, by the aid of 
the machinery of a once g-reat and glorious part}^ with the 
immense patronage of the government in their hands, and by 
inflammatory appeals to the passions and prejudices of the 
people, have at last succeeded in lashing the popular mind in 
nearly every Southern State into a furious fanaticism that 
will not brook control; and Presidents and Cabinets, the Na- 
tional Legislature, and even the Supreme Judiciary, bow to 
its terrible decrees. He who seeks place and power in the 
ranks of this party to-day must ride upon the storm, and add 
fuel to the conflagration already kindled. To no exaction, 
however monstrous, must he hesitate. Prostrate before it, he 
must bow in humble submission to its despotic authoritj^ and 
recognize its wildest claims to universal domination. No 
constitutional provision, however plain; no compromise, how- 
ever" sacred; no law, however just; no judicial decision, how- 
ever venerable, must stand for a moment in its way. He 
who would be a successful leader in the ranks of this party 
to-day cannot, if he would, quiet this pro- slavery fanaticism, 
or secure its submission to the just requirements of the Con- 
stitution. If he refuse blind and unqualified obedience to 



— 108— 

every demand, however revolting", political ostracism is his 
fate. If he fail to keep pace with every new movement, no 
matter what may have been his past services, he will expe- 
rience the doom which, without remorse, was meted out to 
Doug-las at Charleston; for, whatever may be the action of 
the adjourned session of the rump Convention which is to 
meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June, the well-informed 
friends of Mr. Douglas admit that politically he is a doomed 
man; and they may as well admit that, from this time for- 
ward, every leading" man in the party is forever doomed who 
does not 3"ive up every aspiration for freedom, surrender un- 
reservedly his convictions to the behest of this privileg-ed 
class, and use all his power and influence to extend, and make 
permanent and universal, the institution of human slavery. 

Sir, from this hour the pro-slavery Democratic party is 
dead. The disease of which it died was Calhounism. It 
was attacked with this fatal malady in 1844, when James 
K. Polk was forced upon an unwilling- people; and thoug-h 
the rank and file of the Northern Democracy have been strug-- 
g-ling- heroically from that day to this ag^ainst the wiles of 
its cunning- enemy, their political leaders have been false; and 
the org-anization, once so powerful, has at last yielded to 
the violence of the attack at Charleston. The party of Cal- 
houn, which was spurned by Jackson and the Democracy of 
his day, now stand with defiant foot upon its new-made 
g-rave, and demand the surrender of every member of the old 
Democratic party in the North to these Southern usurpers, 
who, under an alluring but piratical flag, whereon is em- 
blazoned the g-lorious name "Democracy," are fighting- 
ag-ainst the rig-hts of man and the liberty of the human 
race. 

From this spurious Democracy, this political intolerance, 
and party despotism, the honest portion of the Northern 
Democracy, which has been basely deceived and betrayed, 
will be compelled to separate. No intellig-ent citizen, sin- 
cerely opposed to the extension and perpetuity of human 
davery in the Republic, can retain his manhood and longer 
sustain the disgraceful affiliation. 

Sir, how is it possible for an intelligent, independent 
citizen, who is in truth a Democrat, and opposed to all despo- 



109 



tism, longer to remain with a party which not only tramples 
upon and violates the Constitution, but which aids and en- 
courag"es the outrag-es inflicted all over the South upon inno- 
cent and defenseless persons for opinion's sake, outrages that 
would not be tolerated in any despotism of Europe, even 
when engaged in open hostilities? Witness the hangings, 
the tar-and-featherings, the imprisonments, the infernal 
indignities, to which the citizens of this country, guilty of 
no crime and no wrong, are subjected at the hands of this 
party in almost every Southern State. Even women, lone 
and defenseless, are not exempt from indignities that ought 
to and must forever disgrace the States and people who 
would tolerate and sanction them. No trial, not even the 
poor mockery of a trial, but the merest suspicion that the 
person is unfriendly to one of the most infernal despotisms 
that ever blighted the land or cursed the earth, is enough to 
bring upon him tortures, outrages, and wrongs, that will 
scarcely be credited by the Christian nations of the world. 

Sir, such things could not be done under the despotism 
of Austria, the most despicable and intolerant government 
among civilized nations, without shaking the throne to its 
foundation; and yet such outrages are committed in one-half 
the States of the American Union by a great party, whose 
leaders were once composed of able and eloquent defenders of 
the rights of man. These outrages are endorsed and ap- 
proved by the party press and party leaders of the South, 
while no word of condemnation or denunciation falls from 
the lips of their Northern allies upon this floor, who must 
speak, if they speak at all, with great deference in the pres- 
ence of their political rulers. For all these wrongs and out- 
rages there is no redress, and no probability of any redress, 
until the inauguration of a Republican President. If such 
outrages were committed by the citizens or government of 
any foreign Power upon the persons of any of our citizens 
who might be temporarily residing in or passing through 
their country, no matter what might be the opinions they 
entertained of the government or any of its institutions, so 
that they committed no overt act, it would be cause, and just 
cause, for war, if prompt redress were not given, and a 



— 110 — 

g"uaranty ag-ainst the commission of such outrag-es in the 
future were not secured. But here at home, in our own coun- 
try, with a people who sprang" from the same ancestry, with 
the same lang-uage, and equal rights under a common Consti- 
tution, these outrages are committed, not only with impunity, 
but are boasted of as feats of marvelous heroism. 

Sir, do gentlemen expect the country to be blind and 
dumb while such crimes are being committed upon American 
citizens? If such is the expectation of Southern gentlemen, 
let me beg them to undeceive themselves. Why, what would 
you say, what would the world say, of our manhood, if such 
a thing were possible as silence and submission under the 
infliction of such monstrous wrongs? Sir, there will be no 
such silence as is sought, there can be no such submission 
as is desired and demanded; and let me ask how long you 
suppose it will be, if these outrages are to continue, before 
there will be a hundred John Browns invading your weak and 
defenseless points at once; not John Browns with mercy to 
their captives, and anxiety to save human life; not John 
Browns controlled by a supposed religious duty; but John 
Browns burning for revenge under the smart of outrages un- 
justly inflicted? Think you that such a system of terrorism 
can continue without retaliation? Do you suppose that these 
men whom you outrage will flee from your States into the 
free North, and quietly sit down and submit to this kind of 
treatment? What would be the first impluse of a Southern 
man under such treatment? Would it not be for retaliation? 
And if a hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand of you 
were outraged and wronged in the brutal, barbarous, and 
cowardly manner that Northern citizens, guilty of no crime, 
have been, would it not follow, as certainly as daj-light fol- 
lows the rising of the sun, that a majority of those who thus 
suffered, and as many of their friends as they could collect, 
would get together for the purpose of retaliation and revenge? 
If we of the North were living in a magazine, as you of the 
South are, which could be exploded at any moment a match 
should be applied to it, would not the victims of such out- 
rages be inclined to apply the match, and let consequences 
take care of themselves? I think the history of John Brown 



-Ill — 

rtna his associates in Kansas and in Virginia oug-lit to be a 
lesson to you on this point. 

Sir, if there was any such spot in any of the free States 
of the North, not even excepting- Egypt, in Illinois, where, 
twenty years ago, violence reigned supreme, and as gallant 
and brave and true a man as ever lived fell a victim to this 
despotic pro-slavery fanaticism; and where, even now, the 
representatives of the dominant party declare openly and 
unblushingly their willingness to do the "dirty work" of 
slave-hunters if demanded by the party — I say, if there was 
any such spot, not even excepting Egypt, that would tolerate 
such crimes and outrages as have been inflicted upon free men 
of the North, and not only tolerate them, but openly boast of 
and glory in them, I do not hesitate to declare that the united 
voice of the people of my district would be, that such a spot 
needed a purification such as the earth received in the days 
of Noah; and, if they had the power, they would submerge 
it for at least a generation, not even providing an ark to save 
alive, for future exhibition, the representatives of such a 
totally depraved race. 

Sir, all these crimes to which I have alluded, all viola- 
tions of the National or State Constitutions, sacred compacts 
and covenants, all disregard of solemn treaties and just laws, 
have been the direct result of the existence of slavery in the 
government. Without slavery, all would have been peace, 
union, and concord. "With it, and while it continues, all will 
be discord, division and strife. And, for men claiming to 
be not only Democrats, but Christians, with the history of 
six thousand years to guide them, and the light of an ever- 
lasting Gospel to direct them, to stand up before the world 
and claim that human slavery and the human auction-block 
are good and desirable institutions in any country, tropical 
or temperate, seems like blasphemy. For Southern Repre- 
sentatives on this floor to boast of the happy and contented 
condition of their slaves at home, while declaring that they 
will dissolve the Union and light up the country with the 
torch of civil war if we repeal one of the most odious and 
obnoxious laws ever enacted for the express purpose of keep- 
ing these happy and contented slaves at home, or of forcing 
them back by all the power of the government, should they 



— 112 — 

escape, seems like self-contradiction. The assertion that 
slaveholders are the only true friends of the slave wculd 
appear to most men outside of slaveholding- States an assump- 
tion too transparent even for ridicule, especially when it is 
remembered that the slave system must, of necessity, com- 
pletely eradicate all manhood from the nature of the slave. 
The assertion that the Republican party are madmen and 
fanatics, enemies to g"ood government, and law and order, is 
the assumption of Francis Joseph of Austria and Napoleon 
of France, and the despots of all ag"es and all countries. 

Mr. Chairman, slavery, like other despotisms, cannot live 
where it permits free speech and a free press. Hence its 
sedition laws and unconstitutional enactments. It is only 
because there is free speech and a free press, free schools and 
a free church, in eig-hteen States of the American Union, that 
slavery is dying" to-day; and because it is dying-, its apostles 
are mad with the madness of destruction. What the most 
disting-uished members of the Republican party could not do, 
they are doing for us. The speeches made during the eight 
weeks we remained unorganized in this House have opened 
the eyes of thousands who, until now, had been blinded to 
the purposes of this power. They can be blinded no longer; 
and they will join the friends of freedom in the coming con- 
test, and aid in taking possession of the government; and 
when once fairly taken possession of, the supremacy of the 
slave barons will be forever destroyed, slavery be assigned to 
limits which it shall never pass, a Republican party be 
organiz3d in all the slave States, and the present noisy 
advocates of sir, very here and elsewhere will be reduced to 
insignificance and silence, 

Mr. Chairman, the causes that brought the Republican 
party into existence, and which give it its life and vitality 
to-day, are as eternal as the principles of God's government; 
and as certainly as truth and justice shall triumph over error 
and wrong, so shall the triumph of freedom in this countr}^ de- 
pend upon the fidelity of our party to its principles. Let no 
friend of our cause be discouraged, here or elsewhere; for action 
and reaction are reciprocal in the moral as in the natural world. 
It cannot be that one class of mankind shall forever exercise 
the same dominion over another class of their fellow-men 



— 113 — 

that they do over the brute creation. The nation or com- 
munity which is g"uilty cannot escape without encountering- 
the retribution which the ways of an all-wise Providence 
have ordained, and which will inevitably come upon the 
wrong-doer. "God is not mock:ed; and His judgments 
wiiyiv not SLEEP forever;" and so sure as justice is the 
foundation of His g-overnment, so surely shall there come an 
end to oppression and to slavery. I will keep this faith or 
none. For, however strong- and apparently all-powerful the 
oppressor may be to-day, we should remember that there is 
a Power above all human power, which proposes and dis- 
poses among the inhabitants of the earth as seemeth to Him 
best; and to Him the oppressed may ever look for succor; for 
as, in His greatness and excellence, He overthrew the hosts 
of Pharaoh of old, who rose up ag-ainst the children of Israel, 
and with the blast of his nostrils blew the waters together, 
so that the floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths 
were congealed in the heart of the sea until the fugitives 
passed over on dry land, and then sent forth His wrath upon 
the face of the deep, so that the waters returned again unto 
their places, and the sea covered the slaveholders who were 
pursuing them, and horse and chariot and rider sunk as lead 
in the mighty waters, so will He to-day, as in the past, 
avenge the wrongs done the least and weakest of His children, 
and bring destruction as a whirlwind upon the wrongdoer. 

Thus hath it ever been, and thus shall it ever be. The 
nation or people who do not rule in righteousness "shall 
perish from the earth." All history proclaims that this is a 
decree as enduring as time and as unchangeable as its author. 
When the time for the exodus of this oppressed and wronged 
race shall have come, as in the providence of God it surely 
will come, then neither the power of your heretofore invin- 
cible army, your Congressional slave codes and fugitive slave 
bills, your system of terrorism and mob laws, nor the pre- 
tended adjudications of your " AUGUST TRIBUNAL " wiU avail 
you in that hour; but the weakest slave mother, with her 
simple and sublime faith uplifted in prayer to the Great 
Supreme, may call down against you, as did the bondmen of 
Egypt, a Power in whose presence your squadrons shall be 



— 114 — 

consumed as stubble, and from before whose face every 
oppressor of the land shall flee, and the hearts of the judg-es 
i f your Supreme Court shall be turned to dust and ashes. 

Sir, it is the purpose and mission of the Republican party 
to avert, if possible, the impending- doom which hang's like 
a black pall over the future of the Republic. It is their pur- 
pose, if possible, to prevent, first, the political slavery and 
then the final subjug-ation of the poor whites to a despotism 
which, in all ag-es and all countries, has been inseparable 
from even a milder form of servitude than ours. Remember- 
ing" that the result of slave systems has ever been the same; 
that it has destroyed all the empires and republics which have 
perished from the earth; and believing- that it will destroy 
this Republic of ours unless we provide and prepare the way 
for its ultimate extinction, they have proposed to the people 
of all sections and all former political parties a union — first, 
to prevent the further spread of this evil, as our fathers did; 
and secondly, to provide a way for the final freedom of all. 
If some just and fair plan is not adopted to prevent the 
further spread of this evil, and secure the liberation of every 
slave, then indeed may we look back in vain throug"h the 
history of all the republics and nations that have flourished 
and fallen, to find a people whose condition was not preferable 
to the slaveholders of the Southern States; preferable in that 
security to person and property which is indispensable to 
peace and happiness. Sir, there is scarcely a g-overnment, to- 
day, in civilized Europe, whose citizens do not enjoy g-reater 
security for their persons and their families than do the slave 
holders of the South. Overtaxed and oppressed thoug-h they 
may be and are, yet they enjoy a freedom from apprehension 
which the slaveholder can never know — an apprehension 
fearful and dark as the g-rave, and which all must dread who 
sleep beneath the overshadowing" wing" of slavery. There is 
and there can be no security from this terrible apprehension. 
It is inseparable from the slave system. Night never closes 
her mantle around the plantation home, that a shudder does 
not creep throug"h the heart of the master, and suspicion, 
like an ever-watchful sentinel, sit upon his e3^elids. 

Sir, the policy of the Republican party is, by an ultimate 
emancipation of this race to secure the liberty and happiness 



— 115 — 

of both master and slave, and remove forever the cause of 
this cruel alarm and apprehension, and thus to bring" safety 
and prosperity where now sectional jealousy and alienation, 
desolation and fear, are supreme; to cause the white-winged 
sail of commerce, whose mission is peace, to cover every 
Southern river and fill every Southern harbor; to reclaim 
her impoverished wastes, and make her desolate places the 
home of peace and plenty. If this cannot be done, and 
speedily done, and peacefully done, then indeed I fear the 
day is not far distant when the genius of despair, like an 
atmosphere, will pervade every habitation, and flap its dark 
and desolating" wings over your fairest heritage; when peace 
shall flee from your borders, and the terrible cry of "to arms ! 
to arms ! " shall be heard from mountain to mountain, and by 
the side of every river and in every valley; when the shrieks of 
flying women and helpless children will be borne upon every 
gale, and the avenging hand of Heaven shall be laid heavily 
upon you, as it was of old upon the oppressors of the children 
of Israel. Sir, I know of no way of escaping the like impend- 
ing doom, which has sealed the fate of all nations and people 
who have preceded us that were guilty of this wrong, except 
by dealing justly, loving mercy, and permitting this oppressed 
people to go. When this is done, peace and concord, pros- 
perity and happiness, shall again return to bless us as a free 
and united people; and it can only return when, throughout 
the nation, on every foot of American soil, and everywhere 
beneath the national ensign, the rights of humanity are fully 
recognized and respected, and your law-makers, and your 
General and State Governments shall again be directed by the 
genius of universal emancipation. 



SRKKCH 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLBY, OF OHIO. 



Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, 
January 17, 1861. 



A CONTINENTAL REPUBLIC, WITH NO SLAVE BENEATH ITS FLAG! 



THE MAJORITY MUST GOVERN. IT IS TREASON TO SECEDE ! 

Mr. Chairman : For more than a quarter of a century, 
the citizens of the free States of this Union, powerful in 
numbers, indomitable in energ-y, superior in wealth and cul- 
ture, have submitted to the constitutionally expressed will of 
the people, and a few thousand slave-owners of the South, 
in the name of Democracy, have dictated and controlled 
the policy of the National Government. The constitutionally 
expressed will of the people is ag-ain declared, and the parties 
which have been defeated are called upon to assent to the 
adoption of the policy of the fathers in the inauguration of the 
just sway of freedom in the National Government. But a 
larg-e majority of the leaders of one of the parties into which 
the South is divided, not only refuse obedience to the leg-ally 
constituted authorities, but some four or five States, under 
the guidance of these party leaders, have gone so far as to 
declare their independence, and others are openly threaten- 
ing rebellion, and the destruction of the government they 
have so long controlled. 

Standing, Mr. Chairman, upon the threshold of such 
events, events the most important in our history since the era 
of the Revolution, I feel the importance, the responsibility, 
and the grandeur of the mission committed by the verdict of 
a generous people to the party of which I am a member. And 
I desire for a short time the attention of the House, while 
discussing the exciting questions which it is alleged this 
verdict of the people has precipitated upon the country. 

(116) 



— 117 — 

Mr. Chairman, however much to be regretted, I am not in- 
sensible to the fact, that in a strug-g-le to carry any important 
measure through this House, tactics are often restored to rather 
than argument, that votes are secured and changes areoftener 
effected by party machinery and Executive influences, than 
by appeals to the judgment and patriotism of members. 

Nevertheless, I feel it to be my duty to speak and make 
known, so far as I may in the limited time allowed me, the 
views of those whom I have the honor to represent. 

Mr. Chairman: Our present prosperity and happiness 
as a nation, no less than our future peace, demands, in my 
judgment, the preservation of the American Union as our 
fathers intended it should be, with no star withdrawn from 
the constellation; demands the maintenance of the National 
Constitution inviolate, and the faithful execution of all laws 
passed in pursuance of that Constitution, not only in every 
State but in every Territory within the limits of the Repub- 
lic; demands an acquiescence in and support of the legally 
^constituted authorities chosen by the people against any and 
all combinations of men who may attempt to subvert or destroy 
the government, because they cannot longer control and 
dictate its policy. 

Mr. Chairman, the people of the United States will ask, 
the nations of Europe will ask, what has been done in this 
country to justify revolution and the attempted destruction 
of the National Government? "Where are the usurpations, 
the acts of oppression, which have been committed either by 
the National Government or any one or more of the Northern 
State governments against any of the Southern States, or the 
citizens of any Southern State, that will excuse, much less 
justif)^ revolution? Certainly there are no acts of the Gen- 
eral Government, of which the Southern people may justly 
complain. The President [Mr. Buchanan] says in his mes- 
sage, that during his term of of&ce the laws have been faith- 
fully executed, and in order that the Southern slave barons 
may be doubly assured that he has been looking after and 
guarding their special interest, he declares that "the; fugi- 
tive SI.AVE I.AW HAS BEEN CARRIED INTO EXECUTION IN EVERY 
CONTESTED CASE SINCE THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT 
ADMINISTRATION. " 



— 118 — 

Senator Douglas, in his letter to the merchants of New 
Orleans, on the 13th of November last, says: " I have yet to 

LEARN THAT THE PEOPLE OF THE SoUTH COMPLAIN OF THE 
ACTS NOW ON THE STATUTE BOOK UPON THE SUBJECT OF 
SLAVERY, AS APPLIED TO THE STATES OR TERRITORIES OR THE 

District of Columbia." Of no action of the National 
Government up to this date, either in refusing- to pass such 
laws as the slave barons have demanded or executing- them as 
they have ordered, can the South justly complain; because 
they have controlled until within a few days the Government, 
and filled all its of6.ces with men who have done their bidding", 
even to conspiring* with those who are attempting" to over- 
throw the g"overnment. 

What, then, is the cause of this "crisis," as it is called? 

I confess, Mr. Chairman, that I have seen no adequate 
cause for it, and therefore voted ag"ainst the unusual course 
adopted by the House in referring" that part of the President's 
Messag"e treating- of what is termed " our domestic affairs," 
to a special committee of thirty-three. 

If there had been any serious alarm, whether with or 
without cause, among" the great body of sober thinking" men 
in the South; if they really believed that their so-called rig-hts 
were to be invaded because of Mr. Lincoln's election; I say 
if there were those who were really alarmed, I was unwilling" 
to add to that alarm by adopting" an unusual course in creat- 
ing" an extraordinary committee, and thus g-ive aid and 
encourag-ement to the conspirators in stirring- up political 
animosities, for the sole purpose of precipitating" the country 
into a revolution, unless the North ag"ain surrendered as they 
had uniformly 'done before under such menaces, and on such 
terms as it mig"ht please the conspirators g-raciously to dictate. 
I believed that such a committee would not only do no g"ood — 
as the sequel has proven — but that by creating" it we would 
tacitly admit that there was some necessity for it. It ap- 
peared to me like pleading" ' ' guilty " to the indictment of 
the President, which I could not do, knowing" it to be false. 
For these reasons I voted ag"ainst raising" this extraordinary 
committee of thirty-three (33). 

But I am told that we are in the midst of a "crisis," a 
*' revolutionary crisis," and such a one as we have never before 



119 



passed through; and I must yield to the minority, compromise 
away the rig-hts of millions of freemen, or the Union is forever 
dismembered and destroyed. I admit, Mr. Chairman, that 
the conspirators have been able, with the aid and connivance 
of the traitors connected with the government, to get up a 
formidable looking "crisis;" and I can assure you, sir, that 
had the people of this country known what has been going 
on here in this Capital for the past four years, in nearly every 
department of the government, there would have been such 
an expression by them at the ballot-boxes in condemnation of 
the party in power, as would not only have silenced the allies 
of the southern disunionists from the North, but have nipped 
in the bud this "revolutionary crisis." But, Mr. Chairman, 
we have passed through several " crises " before. It appears 
to be a chronic disease in American politics. It must be con- 
ceded, however, that heretofore in their desperate efforts to 
get up a " crisis," the conspirators have never set their stakes 
quite so high, nor permitted the treason to appear so undis- 
guised. In 1820 and in 1832, in 1850, and again in 1854, we 
had "crises" not dissimilar to the present one; and they were 
gotten up to order by the same class of men who have suc- 
ceeded so well in getting up the present one. These are the 
same men who, with calculating coolness, disrupted the 
Charleston-Baltimore conventions, and divided the party 
which, for nearly twenty-five years, they had implicitly 
governed. They did not hesitate openly to declare that thej-- 
did so because the friends of Mr. Douglas in the free States 
would not yield to their imperious demands. I have no doubt, 
however, that a large majority of the Southern men, in their 
conventions, never intended to go so far as they have since 
gone. They expected the friends of Mr. Douglas to surrender, 
as they now expect twenty-five millions of people to sur- 
render, to the demands of a few thousand men, who are ask- 
ing new guarantees for slavery. 

But revolutions seldom go backward; and this one is fast 
getting beyond the control of its authors. Undoubtedly, a 
large majority of these men only intended to play the old and 
oft-repeated game by which, heretofore, they had always 
been successful; which has been, first, to create a panic in all 
the slave States, by the most unfounded statements and in- 



— 120 — 

flammatory appeals; and when the "crisis" had reached the 
culminating" point, boldly threaten the disruption and 
destruction of the g-overnment, unless new concessions were 
made by the North; and the concession they were to demand 
this time as a condition for remaining in the Union was not 
a new compromise that might be repealed, as they had repealed 
the old Missouri Compromise; but a so-called compromise that 
should, indeed, this time, be a "finality," by making slavery 
constitutional and perpetual. 

This play, however, Mr. Chairman, has had its run. The 
people of the free States have seen behind the curtain, and 
beg-in to comprehend the manner in which these periodical 
crises are gotten up. They have not forgotten the manufac- 
tured crisis of 1850 — nor forgiven the Northern men who 
pretended that that sham was a reality. They have not 
forgotten that many of their faithless representatives surren- 
dered the rights, and interest, and honor of the North, at the 
bidding of a few slave-masters. And why, Mr. Chairman, did 
these Northern Representatives then surrender? To save the 
Union, they answer. Southern men threatened then as now 
the dissolution of the Union and the destruction of the Gov- 
ernment, unless their demands were complied with. And to 
save any trouble these accommodating Representatives, at 
the bidding of a few Southern men, yielded. 

Did that " finality," as it was then called, settle the ques- 
tion Not at all. Hardly had these pretended Northern 
patriots time to take a breathing spell (in the retirement 
from the cares of public life, which the people immediately 
permitted most of them to enjoy), before it was broken up by 
the new and "final adjustment" of 1854. Upon what pre- 
text was this demand for a compromise, that should be 
"final," made, in 1850? The pretext of equalit}^ in the 
Territories. The freemen of California — as they had the 
right to do — had made California a free State. This was a 
mortal offense to the slave barons, because, by this action of 
the miners of California the slave propagandists lost the 
golden prize upon which they had set their hearts, and for 
which they had involved this nation in an unconstitutional 
war. And because of the action of the free laboring men of 
California, in prohibiting slavery in that State, these men 



— 121 — 

would not admit her into the Union, unless all the remaining- 
territory, wrested from Mexico, should be given up to slavery. 

Sir, when the impartial historian comes to write the his- 
tory of the compromise schemes of 1850, and the war made 
by the act of the Executive of this powerful Nation against 
the weak Republic of Mexico, for the sole purpose of extend- 
ing the institution of slavery over the free and virgin soil of 
Utah, New Mexico and California — he will be compelled to 
class these acts as among the darkest crimes of which this 
Nation was ever guilty; and the compromisers from the free 
States as morally guiltier than those who precipitated us into 
that unjust war. 

"When the old Whig party authoritatively' endorsed, iu 
their national convention, these compromise measures, its 
death was inevitable. This old party, so formidable and 
manly when the ally of freedom, immediately became weak, 
sickly and powerless when it became the ally of slavery, and 
died; died as the pro-slavery Democratic party has just died, 
because also false to freedom, and as the Republican party 
will die, and as it ought to die, if it ever agrees to engraft 
into the Constitution a clause recognizing property in man. 
If it should do this thing, nothing can or ought to save it. 
Neither the talents of its most distinguished leaders, their 
prospective promotion, or the distribution of the patronage 
of the Federal Government. If all these combined could 
have saved any party, the Whig party could have been saved. 
But they could not. And as I now look back, over the long 
list of names which once made that party illustrious in the 
history of my country, I feel almost startled at the thought, 
that men so great, so venerated by the people of the United 
States, could, by the allurements and blandishments of the 
slave barons, have been so far overcome as to betray the 
cherished principles of their lives, and the hopes of the peo- 
ple who entrusted them with power. But such was the fate 
of most of the leaders of the organization of which I am 
speaking. One after another deserted until, at last, the eyes 
of the Nation were fixed upon one whose unsurpassed ability 
and great name had, in almost every crisis through which 
the country had passed, been the hope and reliance of the 
liberty-loving masses. And when, alas! he too fell, a black 



122 



pall, as of midnig-ht darkness, spread over the political hori- 
zon, and many earnest and true men g-ave up in despair. 

It may be, sir, that with others, I have placed too great 
an estimate upon this extraordinary man, who has done so 
much as a statesman and orator to g"ive our country fame and 
position among- the nations of the earth, who has done so 
much for freedom and so much, alas! for slavery, whose fall 
will ever be regretted by the g-ood and g-reat, and whose last 
fatal step should be a perpetual warning- to all who shall 
come after him. Sir, it would seem as if by the rock-beaten 
shore of his own beloved Massachusetts, in whose bosom he is 
laid down to rest, there must come up forever from old ocean a 
sorrowing- response to the sad hearts of the people of Massa- 
chusetts for his fall. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the 
preacher. The weakness and nothing-ness of human g-reat- 
ness never in all the history of the past shone out more con- 
spicuously than when this g-reat light went out, overshadowed 
as it was by the dark cloud of slavery. From the hour he 
abandoned the principles of freedom and the will of the peo- 
ple of Massachusetts, he felt that he was dying, and he hur- 
riedly bade adieu to this Capital, to the scenes of his wonder- 
ful triumphs and former glory, and to the dying organization 
which had been at once his life and his death, and passing 
away with it, both were entombed together, and there the 
party and he who was its brightest ornament and most dis- 
tinguished leader will ever remain — the party to be remem- 
bered in history only for its greatness and folly; its timidity 
and its wrongs. Its greatness, in that it had as its leaders 
the brightest intellects of the land and in its ranks the mass 
of intelligence. Its folly, in that it subordinated human 
rights to a financial policy calculated to benefit the few, 
rather than guard the interest of the many. Its timidity, in 
that it never could lead, but was ever on the defensive, plead- 
ing for ease and quiet. In its wrongs, in that it gave the 
sanction of its organization to the most offensive demands of 
the slave barons, when it endorsed the fatal compromise 
of 1850. 

Mr. Chairman, there was no more necessity for the politi- 
cal excitement which preceded the so-called compromises 
of 1850 than there is to-day for President Buchanan to in- 



123 



flict upon this House and country another messag-e on South- 
ern rig-hts and Southern wrong-s. That panic was all manu- 
factured, coolly and deliberately manufactured, just as the 
owner of a steam mill would g-et up steam by putting" fire 
under the boiler. 

Just so with this "crisis" to a great extent. Three- 
fourths of it is the baldest pretense. There are only a few 
leading- men who at heart favor it, and those who do have 
put a ball in motion which, unless soon checked, they will be 
unable to control or even direct, and like the authors of the 
French revolution, they will, in all human probability, be 
among" its first victims. 

Already the sober thinking" men of the Soutn are trem- 
bling", not only for their own personal safety and that of their 
families, but for fear of a despotism which they cannot 
tolerate, and a taxation which will eat out all their substance. 
Already we g"et g"limpses of what may be expected in the 
future, especially if war should ensue. Forced contributions 
must be levied; the citizens will be assessed and told they 
must take so much of the revolutionary stock. If they re- 
fuse, they will be classed among" the disaffected, then de- 
nounced as abolitionists in disg"uise, and subjected to the 
mercy of a maddened mob. A tax of from fifteen to 
TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS per head annually for each slave, and 
other property in proportion, will soon cool the mad enthu- 
siasm of the thoug"htless. 

How many men are there in South Carolina over twenty- 
one years of ag"e? Not more than fifty-five thousand. Of 
this number less than ten thousand are planters — and not 
more than twelve thousand in addition own their homesteads. 
Almost two-thirds of the entire white population are tenants 
at will of the planters. They are very poor, ig"norant, and 
destitute, and according" to Senator Hammond, "obtain a 
precarious subsistence by occasional jobs, by hunting", by 
fishing", by plundering" fields and folds, and too often by what 
is in its effects far worse — trading" with slaves, and seducing 
them to plunder for their benefit." 

With less than twenty-five thousand men who have any 
property to be taxed. South Carolina proposed to make war 



— 124 — 

on the United States. Has the world ever witnessed such 
stupendous folly and madness? 

From seven to ten millions of dollars annually will be 
necesGar}^ if she is involved in war, to maintain her g-overn- 
ment and army. Where is this vast sum of money to come 
from? From the other slave States, it may be answered, 
but the other slave States will be in no better condition than 
South Carolina, even if they should unite. The proportion- 
ate cost of maintaining- one or ten g-overnments, one or ten 
armies, would be about the same. 

Mr. Boyce, late a member of this House, answered these 
questions, a few years ago, in an address to the people of 
South Carolina, as follows: 

" South Carolina cannot become a nation. God makes 
nations — not man. You cannot extemporize a nation out of 
South Carolina. It is simply impossible; we have not the 
resources. We could exist by tolerance; and what that toler- 
ance would be, when we consider the present hostile spirit of 
the ag-e to the institution of slavery, all may readily imag"ine. 
I trust we may never have to look upon the painful and 
humiliating" spectacle. From the weakness of our National 
Government a feeling- of insecurity would arise, and capital 
would take the alarm and leave us. But it may be said, 
"Let capital g-o!" To this I reply, that capital is the life- 
blood of a modern community; and, in losing- it, you lose the 
vitality of the State. 

"Secession — separate nationality, with all its burdens 
— is no remedy. It is no redress for the past, it is no secu- 
rity for the future. It is only a mag-nificent sacrifice of the 
present, without in anywise g-aining- in the future. Such is 
the intensity of my conviction on the subject, that .if seces- 
sion should take place — of which I have no idea, for I can- 
not believe in such stupendous madness — I shai^l consider 
THE institution OP SLAVERY AS DOOMED, and that the g-reat 
God, in our blindness, has made us the instrument of its 
destruction." 

What Mr. Boyce then said, is as true to-day as when he 
uttered it. South Carolina cannot long- maintain her present 
position. With her commerce destroyed by blockade, as it 
will be in case of war, all her available men in the army, 
an immense police force, at g-reat cost, to watch and prevent 
if they can, an outbreak among- the slaves, every branch of 
business prostrated, and her cotton and rice fields turned into 



— 125 — 

desolate wastes, no people will long- submit to such an in- 
tolerable condition. Already men of means are moving- or 
sending- their families North. It is a step dictated by pru- 
dence. I should certainly do so were I a resident of the 
South, and one of her larg-est slave owners. I would have 
no fears that my family would be either mobbed, or insulted, 
or ordered out of the country by some self-constituted vig-i- 
lance committee, or that my property would be destroyed or 
stolen and distributed among- the rabble, because I happened 
to be a resident of a Southern State. No judicious man 
who is able, will hazard the risk, at such a time, of having- 
his wife and family violated and massacred by the slaves, in 
case of a servile insurrection. The madness of the leaders in 
this attempted revolution, is driving- and will drive thousands 
of families and millions of wealth into ,the North. The 
bluster of 1832 drove some citizens of South Carolina, whom 
I know, into Ohio, and I doubt not there were others who 
settled in nearly all the free States. 

When the leading- conspirators come to put their hands 
into the pockets of the people, to take their last dollar, they 
will rebel. If the citizens of South Carolina, and of the 
Southern States, were oppressed by the National Govern- 
ment with burdens that honorable and patriotic men could 
not bear, then I grant you they would, as would every brave 
people, sacrifice life and property without stint, if there was 
any hope of bettering- their condition. They have not, how- 
ever, and cannot point the people to a list of intolerable 
grievances, such as will justify their attempted revolution. 
The address issued to the Southern people, which was prepared 
by order of the South Carolina convention, declares, that 
"While constituting a portion of the United States, it has 
been the statesmanship of the South, which has guided the 
nation in its mighty strides to power and expansion. In 
the field, as in the Cabinet, it is they who have led it to its 
renown and grandeur." For seventy-three years then, on 
her own showing, Southern statesmen have controlled and 
given direction to the National Government, under which 
their section has grown from a million and a half to eight 
millions, without including the slaves, and has advanced in 
prosperity and wealth as no people ever did before. Is there 



126 



then, taking- her own statement as true, any justification for 
the course South Carolina and other Southern States are 
attempting, and which nearly all are threatening"? 

No wrong or unconstitutional act has been committed or 
is proposed to be committed by the General Government. Is 
the mere election by the people, of a President who does not 
favor the cherished policy of a few thousand slaveholders, 
suf&cient cause for destroying- the Union, and involving the 
nation in civil war? I need not answer this question; there 
can be and there will be but one response by the patriotic 
men of all parties. The judg-ments of all thinking- impartial 
men in the entire nation, and in the civilized world, will con- 
demn the leaders who without cause, are attempting- the disso- 
lution of this Union, and the destruction of the best form of 
g-overnment ever devised by man. To this crime is added 
that of duplicity. During the late campaign every Presiden- 
tial candidate for whom the South or North voted, distinctly 
denied that they were in favor of disunion, but on the con- 
trary they all professed the most unqualified devotion to the 
Union. 

The people of the United States then voted, but little 
over two months ago, unanimously in favor of maintaining- 
the Union. Why then should it be destroyed now? What 
has been done since to justify such a g-ig-antic crime? Ca)n 
anyone give a satisfactory answer? Men who have brought 
about the present excitement may attempt to satisfy them- 
selves, but they cannot justify their conduct to an intelligent 
people. 

But we are told, Mr. Chairman, that unless we vote for 
such new guarantees to slavery as the South shall demand, 
that all the Southern States are going out of the Union. It 
is said that they intend to do this with the confident expec- 
tation of obtaining concessions from the North which they 
could not obtain in the Union. That they expect to do this 
by a reconstruction of the National Union on such terms as 
they shall dictate. In this mad scheme they have the sym- 
pathy, encouragement and promise of aid from men in the free 
States, calling themselves Democrats. 

The basis of the new Union is to be the recognition of 
slaves as property by constitutional provision, unalterable 



— 127 — 

except with the consent of every slave State. And this is 
called Democracy in the year of grace, 1861. Democracy in 
the days of Jefferson, was for free States and free Territories. 
Madison " woui,d not admit into the Constitution th:^ 

IDEA THAT THERE COULD BE PROPERTY IN MAN." To-day 

the doctrine that slavery is rig-ht and must be made per- 
petual, is the test of what is called Democracy. 

That such demands will ever be acceded to by the people 
of the United States, I do not believe possible. But whatever 
may be the course of others, be the consequences what the)' 
may, by no act or vote of mine shall the. Constitution of my 
country ever be so amended as to recognize property m man. 

Mr. Chairman, ours is a complex system of g-ovemment 
uniting two governments within the same territorial jurisdic- 
tion. The State governments being confined within their 
own boundaries, the National Government extending over 
all States and Territories, and on the high. seas. Every 
loyal citizen is subject to both these governments, and can in 
no way withdraw his allegiance from either, except by ceas- 
ing to be a citizen of the United States. If he is a citizen of 
the United States he is also a citizen of the State where he 
resides, and he cannot be a citizen of any State, and be re- 
leased by any action Cx said State from his allegiance to the 
National Government. 

Both these governments, the State and National, derive 
all the power they possess directly from the people. The gov- 
ernment of the United States is supreme to the extent of the 
powers clearly delegated to it in the National Constitution. 
The State governments are supreme within their limits, ex- 
cept in the exercise of power reserved by the people or pro- 
hibited to them by the Constitution of the United States. 

There can be no misunderstanding as to what the reserved 
powers are which are prohibited to the States. Article first, 
section ten, of the Federal Constitution declares that 

"No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or con- 
federation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; 
emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a 
tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, or 
EX POST FACTO law, or law impairing the obligation of con- 
tracts, or grant any title of nobility." 



128 



Clause 2. "No State shall, without the consent of Con- 
gress, lay any imposts on duties, on imports or exports, ex- 
cept what may be absolutely necessary for executing* its in- 
spection laws; and the net produce of all duties and impost, 
laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use 
of the Treasury of the United States; and all such laws 
shall be subject to the revision and control of Congress. " 

Clause 3. " No State shall, without the consent of Con- 
gress, lay a duty on tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in 
time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with 
another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, un- 
less actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not 
admit of delay." 

These powers prohibited to the States were conferred by 
the supreme Constitution on the National Government. The 
highest attributes of sovereignty are thus secured by this Con- 
stitution. Congress alone has power to make war and make 
peace, to conclude treaties and to regulate commerce with the 
nations abroad and with the States of the Union at home. 
Congress alone possesses the exclusive power to keep an 
army and navy, to lay and collect duties on imports, coin 
money and regulate its value, and to crown all, it is declared 

— "that this Constitution and the laws of the United 
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all 
treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority 
of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; 
and the judges in every State shall be bound thereb}^ anything 
in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding." 

There is then, no necessity for a conflict of jurisdiction 
between the General and State governments. To the extent 
of the powers conferred by the Constitution on Congress, it 
was intended that the National Government should act di- 
rectly upon the citizens of all the States and Territories and 
execute its own laws and decrees by its own officers. To the 
States are secured the regulation of their own municipal 
affairs, with which Congress can in no way constitutionally 
interfere. 

The powers and duties of both governments are clearly 
defined, and neither may of right interfere with or attempt to 
exercise the functions of the other. Where the citizens and 
officers of these governments discharge their duties properly, 



129 



there can be no collision. These systems of g-overnment are, 
in my opinion, the best ever devised by man. The his- 
tory of this nation, for the past seventy-three years, is 
the best evidence of its practicability. They have and 
ever will work harmoniously, if honestly administered. The 
people residing- in the thirteen colonies created this 
National Government by making" and adopting- our present 
Constitution. They did not make it and ratify it as nations 
make and ratify treaties. They did not make it for a tempo- 
rary purpose, but to secure a "perpetual union." It was 
made by the action and with the approval of the whole peo- 
ple residing" in all the colonies, and was not made by the 
citizens of independent sovereig-nties, as the secessionists 
claim. Neither before nor after the Declaration of our 
National Independence were any one of the old thirteen colo- 
nies free and independent states or nations; but they were 
colonies of Great Britain, then they were colonies united as 
one g"overnment, under the Articles of Confederation, in re- 
bellion ag-ainst Great Britain, calling" themselves the "United 
States of America. " The war of our Independence was f oug"ht 
and our liberty secured by the Confederation, and not by 
sing"le colonies. Their joint independence was acknowledged 
by Great Britain and the nations of Europe, and never as sep- 
arate sovereig"n independent States. The several States are 
not even mentioned by name in any one of these treaties, so 
far as I have examined. Our fathers intended, in every pos- 
sible manner, to impress upon the American mind the maxim 
that our freedom and independence was secured by our Union; 
and that, without this Union, we could not maintain our 
liberty and independence. 

From all the patriotic men of the Revolution there comes 
to us the warning, to beware of the dang-ers of a dissolution 
of the Union. In a letter, of the date of October 10th, 1787, 
addressed by Randolph to the Speaker of the House of Dele- 
gates of Virginia, he said: 

"Severe experience under the pressure of war, a ruinous 
weakness manifested since the return of peace, and the con- 
templation of those dangers which darken the future pros- 
pect, have condemned the hope of grandeur and of safety 
9 



-130 — 

under the auspices of the Confederation. . . . Among- the up- 
rig-ht and intellig^ent, few can read without emotion the future 
fate of the States if severed from each other. Then shall we 
learn the full weig-ht of f oreig-n intrig-ue. Then shall we hear 
of partitions of the country. . . . But dreadful as the total 
dissolution of the Union is to my mind, I entertain no less 
horror at the thought of partial confederacies. In short, sir, 
I am fatig-ued with summoning* up to my imag-ination the 
miseries which will harass the United States, if torn from 
each other, and which will not end until they are superseded 
by fresh mischiefs, under the yoke of a tyrant." 

To the same effect are the declarations of Washington, 
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and many others, whose opinions 
mig-ht be quoted, did time permit. 

At no period in our history, either before or since the 
Revolution, has any one of the States been a separate sover- 
eign independent nation, with the recognized power to make 
war and conclude treaties, or form or dissolve alliances with 
any nation. The principle of national unity is the very life 
and soul of our Constitution. Without it, our great national 
charter is not worth the paper upon which it is written. 

In a letter, addressed by the unanimous vote of the con- 
vention which framed the Constitution, to "his excellency 
the President of Congress," it is declared that — 

— "it is obviously impracticable in the Federal Govern- 
ment of these States to secure all rights of independent sover- 
eignty to each, and yet provide for the interests and safety 
of all. ... In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept 
steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest 
INTEREST of every true American, the consolidation of our 
Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, 
perhaps our national existence." — [Elliott's Debates, vol. 
1, p. 24.] 

The thirteen colonies, as I have before said, were united 
u«nder the Confederation at the time the present Constitution 
was adopted, and the old Continental Congress, representing 
the people in all the States, initiated the movements for the 
new government, by calling together the convention of dele- 
gates which made this Constitution, declaring by resolutions 
when they did so, that the convention was called "for the 
sole and only purpose of making the Federal Government 
adequate to the exigencies of gover^nment, and the preserva- 



— 131 — 

tion of the Union." And this constitutional convention, when 
submitting- their joint labors to the judgment of their con- 
stituents, declared in the preamble to the Constitution, that, 
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a 
MORK PERFECT Union, establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
quility, provide for the common defense, promote the g-eneral 
welfare, and secure the blessing's of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for 
the United States of America." 

*' Can it be conceived," says General Jackson, 

—"that an instrument made for the purpose of 'forming- a 
more perfect Union' than that of the Confederation could be so 
constructed by the assembled wisdom of our country as to 
substitute for that confederation a form of g-overnment de- 
pendent for its existence on the local interest, the party spirit 
of a State or of a prevailing" faction in a State?" 

Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey, a disting-uished member of 
the convention which framed the Constitution, declared " that 
no State under the Confederation had a rig'ht to with- 
draw from the Union without the consent of all." "The 
Confederation," he says, 

— "is in the nature of a compact, and can any State, unless 
by the consent of the whole, either in politics or law, with- 
draw their powers? Let it be said by Pennsylvania and the 
other large States that they, for the sake of peace, assented 
to the Confederation; can she now resume her original rig-ht 
without the consent of the donee?" 

This modern doctrine of the right of a State to withdraw 
from the Union at pleasure, is a "heresy" which was de- 
nounced by all the leading men of the Revolution. If one 
State can withdraw from the Union at pleasure, may not a 
majority of the States, with the same propriety, exclude one 
or more States from the Union? Certainly they can. But 
there is no such right under the Constitution, and the framers 
of the Constitution carefully guarded against any such ab- 
surd theory. 

" It is only," says Judge Story, 

"in the event of a failure of every CONSTITUTIONAL 
RESORT, AND AN ACCUMULATION OF USURPATIONS AND ABUSES 
RENDERING PASSIVE OBEDIENCE AND NON-RESISTANCE A GREATER 



132- 



KViiv THAN resistance; AND REVOLUTION, that even Madison 
claims for 'a single member of the Union' a rig-ht, as an 
EXTRA AND ULTRA CONSTITUTIONAL tight, to make the appeal 
from the cancelled obligations of the constitutional compact 
to original rights and the laws of self-preservation." — [1 
Story ON Con. 280.] 

Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of Cohens vs. Vir- 
ginia (5 Wheaton, p. 92), said 

' ' The PEOPLE made the Constitution, and the people can 
unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by 
their will. But this supreme irresistible power to make and 
unmake resides only in the whole body op the people; not 
in any subdivision of them. The attempt of any of the 
parts to exercise it is usurpation, and ought to be repelled by 
those to whom the people have delegated this power of repel- 
ling it. The acknowledged inability of the government, 
then, to sustain itself against the public will, and, by force 
or otherwise, to control the whole nation, is no sound argu- 
ment in support of its constitutional inability to preserve 
itself against a section of the nation acting in opposition 

TO THE GENERAL WILL." 

Nowhere did the framers of the Constitution provide for 
the dissolution of the Union. Neither did the people, in any 
one of the colonies, when adopting the Constitution, reserve 
to themselves the right to withdraw from the Union at pleas- 
ure, and thus destroy the government they were organizing 
and the Union it created. The citizens in two or three of 
the colonies, it is true, before ratifying the Constitution, did 
discuss the propriety of reserving the right to withdraw from 
the Union at pleasure, but no such right was conceded; and 
from the necessity of the case, could not be admitted then, 
any more than it can be now. 

Alexander Hamilton, in a letter to James Madison, sug- 
gested the propriety of New York ratifying the Constitution 

with "THE RESERVATION OP A RIGHT TO SECEDE," if certain 

amendments to the Constitution, proposed by New York, 
were not adopted within a given period. Mr. Madison re- 
plied, declaring explicitly, that the Constitution required an 
"adoption IN TOTo AND POREVER." It has, he adds, "been 
so ADOPTED BY THE OTHER STATES." But I will read the 
whole paragraph: 



— 133 — 

"My opinion is, that a reservation of a rig-lit to with- 
draw, if amendments be not decided on under the form of the 
Constitution, within ri certain time, is a conditional ratifica- 
tion, that it does not make New York a member of the new 
Union, and consequently she should not be received on that 
plan. Compacts must be reciprocal; this principle in such 
case would not be preserved. The Constitution requires an 
adoption in toto and forever. It has been so adopted by 
the other States. An adoption for a limited time would be 
as defective as an adoption of some of the articles only. In 
short, any condition whatever must vitiate the ratification. 
. . . The idea of reserving- the rig-ht to withdraw was stated 
at Richmond and considered as a conditional ratification, 
which was itself abandoned — worse than a rejection." 

At a later day (1830), Mr. Madison declared, in a letter 
to Hon. Edward Everett, that — 

"It [the Constitution] was formed not by th«e govern- 
ments OP THE COMPONENT STATES, as the Federal Govern- 
ment for which it was substituted was formed; nor was it 
formed by a majority of the people of the United States, as 
a sing-le community, in the manner of a consolidated g-overn- 
ment. It was formed by the States, that is, by the people in 
each of the States, acting- in their hig-hest sovereig-n capacity, 
and formed consequently by the same authority which formed 
the State constitutions. 

"Being- thus derived from the same source as the con- 
stitutions of the States, it has within each State the same 
authority as the constitution of the State, and is as much a 
constitution, in the strict sense of the term, within its pre- 
scribed sphere, as the constitutions of the States are in their 
respective spheres, but v/ith this obvious and essential differ- 
ence, that being- a compact among- States in their hig-hest 
sovereign capacity, and constituting- the people* thereof one 
people for certain purposes, it can not be altered or an- 
nulled AT THE WILL OP THE STATES INDIVIDUALLY, aS the 
constitution of a State may be at its individual will." 

Thus spoke Madison, the father of the Constitution. 
I now make a quotation from Jefferson. In a letter writ- 
ten more than forty-five years ag-o, he said — 

"In every free and deliberating- society, there must, from 
the nature of man, be opposite parties and violent dissen- 
sions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must 
prevail over the others for a long-er or a shorter time. Per- 
haps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch 
and relate to the people the proceeding-s of the other. But 



--134-- 

IF, ON A TEMPORARY SUPERIORITY OP THE ONE PARTY, THE 
OTHER IS TO RESORT TO A SCISSION OF THE UnION, NO FEDERAL 

GOVERNMENT CAN EVER EXIST. If to rid ourselves of the 
present rule of Massachusetts and Connecticut we break the 
Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the New England 
States alone cut off, will our natures be chang-ed? Are we 
not men still to the south of that, and with all the passions 
of men? Immediately we shall see a Virg-inia and a Penn- 
sylvania party arise in the residuary confederacy, and the pub- 
lic mind will be distracted by the same party spirit. What a 
g'ame, too, will one party have in their hands, by eternally 
threatening- the other, that unless they do so and so they 
will join their northern neighbors. If we reduce our Union 
to Virg-inia and North Carolina, immediately the conflict 
will be established between the representatives of these two 
States, and they will end by breaking into their simple units." 

These and similar opinions of the leading men who put 
the machinery of our government in motion, might be quoted, 
if time permitted, almost indefinitely. In fact the whole his- 
tory of the times proves that the men who made the Consti- 
tution and favored its ratification, intended to make a govern- 
ment for the people in all the States which should be strong 
enough to withstand all attacks, and which could not be 
broken up or divided, except by the consent of the whole 
people. 

Mr. Chairman, article fourth, section fourth, of the 
Constitution declares that the ' ' United States shall guarantee 
to every State in the Union a republican form of government." 
This includes, of course, all the States in the Union when 
the Constitution was adopted, and 9.II new States which 
should afterwards be admitted into the Union. These words 
are not susceptible of double interpretation. They can have 
but one meaning. They declare imperatively that the exec- 
utive, legislative, and judicial powers of the government, 
acting under and by authority of the National Constitution, 
shall see that every State in the Union has secured to it a 
republican form of government. This provision of itself is 
a clear denial of the claim set up here that every State is 
sovereign and independent, and that the National Govern- 
ment is only a confederation clothed by these sovereign and 
independent States with temporary authority, which can be 
withdrawn at the pleasure, caprice, or whim of an accidental 



— 135 — 

or absolute majority of the citizens of any State. General 
Jackson declared in liis celebrated proclamation "that to say 
that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to 
say that the United States are not a nation." 

This claim of the rig-ht of any State to withdraw from 
the Union at pleasure, is so absurd that it would seem un- 
worthy of serious consideration, were it not for the fact that 
the doctrine is daily proclaimed here, with some show of 
seriousness, and, I regret to say, by some northern men. 

Mr. Chairman, the people of the United States in creat- 
ing- this National Government, intended to protect themselves 
from every form of despotism. They intended to secure 
themselves ag^ainst the action of State g"overnments, which 
in an excitement like the present mig-ht attempt to establish 
a despotic g-overnment, abolish liberty, and violate the 
guaranteed rights of any portion of their citizens. And in 
order thus to secure themselves, they provided in the National 
Constitution for a redress of their grievances by appealing 
from the unconstitutional action of such a State to the whole 
people in all the States represented in one government. The 
National Government, by this mandatory clause, becomes the 
protector of the whole people in all the States against the 
violation of their personal rights and liberties, even though 
committed by legislative majorities; and the General Govern- 
ment is clothed with all necessary power and authority to 
preserve inviolate the guarantees secured to all citizens by 
the National Constitution. This was a wise and salutary pro- 
vision, enabling an oppressed minority in any locality to 
secure the assistance and protection of the whole people 
against every form of despotism. 

As a nation, the law of self-preservation demands that 
we permit no State or combination of States to break up and 
destro)' this government, and establish upon our borders anti- 
democratic, monarchical or military despotisms. As a gov- 
ernment, we can no more allow this to be done, than a State 
c:.,n allcw one or more counties within its jurisdiction to dis- 
solve their connection at pleasure with the State government, 
and establish a government hostile to the State. The fact 
that the citizens of these counties might vote unanimously 
for secession, would not justify the citizens in the remaining 



— 136 — 

counties of the State in permitting- the State thus to be dis_ 
membered, any more than the gfovernment of the United 
States could permit a State to be withdrawn, even thoug"h 
the citizens of the seceding- State should vote unanimously in 
favor of the proposition. Neither could we permit States in 
the Union to chang-e their g-overnments, and adopt g-overn- 
ments anti-republican in form, much less to establish monar- 
chical or military despotisms in violation of the fundamental 
provisions of the National Constitution. 

Chief Justice Taney, in the case of Luther vs. Borden, 
ET Aiv., 8th Howard, pag-e 45, a case growing out of the 
Dorr rebellion in Khode Island, and to which I may again 
allude, declared that: 

"Unquestionably, a military government, established as 
the permanent government of a State, would not be a repub- 
lican government, and it would be the duty of Congress to 
overthrow it.'' 

If it be the duty of Congress, as Chief Justice Taney 
declares, and as I believe, to overthrow a military govern- 
ment, established by the legal authorities of any State, it 
cannot be denied that it is also the duty of Congress to over- 
throw and abolish any form of government in a State which 
is in fact anti-republican and oppressive, no matter whether 
established by the legally constituted authorities, or by usur- 
pation. The power of the National Government to prohibit 
any State from establishing an anti-republican form of gov- 
ernment, is as clear and unquestioned as is its authority to 
prohibit any State from setting the National Constitution at 
defiance and assuming the power of an independent nation. 

The mode and manner of procedure, in either case, is 
committed entirely to the discretion of Congress, as pro- 
vided in section eighth, clause eighteen of the Constitution, 
which authorizes Congress "To make ai.i. laws which shali. 

BE NECESSARY AND PROPER TO CARRY INTO EXECUTION THE 

foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this 
Constitution in the government of the United States or 
in any department or fficer thereof." 

In the Rhode Island case to which I have allud;d, there 
was I believe, an admitted majority, of the people cf the 
State, who desired to change from the charter government of 



— 137 — 

Charles the Second, granted in 1663, under which the State 
had always acted, to a constitutional gfovernment which 
should extend the rig-ht of suffrag-e, and fairly adjust the ine- 
quality in the apportionment of representatives in the State 
Leg"islature. The charter pointed out no mode of procedure 
by which amendments could be made, and the charter party, 
by the unfair apportionment and the property qualification 
for electors, were able to keep possession of the government, 
and on a pretense of want of power to propose any amend- 
ments to the charter, they repeatedly refused to initiate pro- 
ceedings on application of the people for a change of the 
organic law from the old monarchical charter to a republi- 
can constitution. 

The people failing to obtain a redress of their grievances 
from the recognized authorities, proceeded to secure them in 
a revolutionary manner. They formed associations, held 
public meetings, prescribed rules for the election of a con- 
vention of delegates to form a State constitution; in accor- 
dance with which delegates were elected throughout the 
State, who met, framed an excellent constitution and sub- 
mitted it to the people for adoption or rejection. A vote was 
taken upon it at the time and in the manner prescribed by 
the convention, and it was adopted and ratified by a large 
majority of the people. Elections were subsequently held in 
accordance with the provisions of this constitution, and 
Thomas W. Dorr was duly elected governor, together with 
a legislature and all State officers provided for in the consti- 
tution. This legislature convened and organized; Dorr was 
inaugurated governor, and attempted to take possession of 
the arsenals and public property of the State. The charter 
government resisted the people's government, proclaimed 
martial law by act of their legislature, and called on the 
President of the United States for military aid to assist in 
putting down the rebellion. As soon as Dorr and his party 
learned that the President had decided to assist the charter 
g-overnment, he fled from the State, and thus ended the so- 
called Dorr rebellion and with it their government. Of 
course I need hardly add what all know so well, that Dorr 
was subsequently tried for treason, convicted, and sent to the 
penitentiary for life. I do not speak of the justice or injus- 



— 138— 

tice of the charter government, I only speak of the fact. I 
have been thus minute in this matter to show that if an ad- 
mitted minority of the citizens of any State may thus have 
the assistance of the National Government against an ad- 
mitted majority who were seeking in a peaceful, and as they 
supposed, the only manner in which they could proceed to 
secure their own rights, without inflicting or intending to 
inflict injury or wrong on the minority, or establish a govern- 
ment hostile to the United States, how much more important 
that a minority of the citizens in any State, who are loyal to 
the Union, shall be protected in their constitutional rights, 
even though a large majority, through the forms of law, 
attempt to destroy their liberties, make war upon the Na- 
tional Government, and establish a despotic instead of a 
republican form of government. 

Mr. Chairman, I have introduced the subject matter of 
the Rhode Island controversy here, for the double purpose of 
showing the power conferred on the government of the United 
States by the National Constitution, and the duty of the 
government in contingencies that now seem likely to happen. 
Suppose FIVE or ten, or even all the slave States should, with 
the sanction of a majority of their citizens, and under the 
forms of law enacted by their present recognized authorities, 
join South Carolina in her treasonable movements. What 
would be the duty of the General Government toward the 
patriotic and loyal minority in these States? Undoubtedly 
there can be but one answer to this question. It is their duty 
to protect and secure them in the enjoyment of all their con- 
stitutional rights, and by force if necessary. And though 
the loyal citizens should be largely in the minority, if they 
remain faithful to the Constitution and the Union, thej may 
and should disregard the action and usurpations of a ma- 
jority, refuse to recognize their treasonable proceedings, 
either in declaring the States sovereign and independent, 
changing the State constitutions, or by acts of their conven- 
tions absolving all citizens from their allegiance to the Na- 
tional Government. Those who remain loyal and refuse to 
recognize such revolutionary proceedings, may continue to 
act under the old constitution and laws of the State, as if no 
such treasonable action had taken place, elect their governor, 



— 139 — 

State officers, and members of the Legislature and Congress, 
at the time and in the manner prescribed b j the laws existing 
prior to the usurpation. 

The Governors thus elected could call upon the Presi- 
dent of the United States for aid to suppress the rebellion, 
and it would be his duty to grant it. There is no doubt but 
what Congress would recognize such a government. The 
legislature thus elected could choose United States Senators 
to fill any vacancies that might exist either from the expira- 
tion of the terms of the present Senators, their resignation 
or expulsion, because engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow 
the present National Government. The Senators and Repre- 
sentatives in Congress thus elected by the loyal citizens of 
any of the seceding States, would undoubtedly be admitted to 
seats, each House, by the Constitution, being the sole judge 
of the qualifications of its own members. In this manner 
the National Government could fulfill and discharge its con- 
stitutional obligations by securing to each State a republi- 
can form of government, suppress rebellion, and protect the 
lives, liberties and property of the loyal citizens. If it be 
said, however, that the majority would vote down the 
MINORITY, or by force and mob law prevent such an expression 
of their opinions at the ballot-box, or the revolutionists might 
elect a Governor and Legislature, members of Congress and 
Senators, with the understanding that they should not serve, 
and that such a scheme as is proposed for the minority to act 
upon is impracticable; then, I answer, that the duty of all 
loyal citizens would be to assemble and petition Congress for 
a redress of their grievances — the protection of their lives 
and property, and the security- of all their constitutional 
rights, including a republican form of State governm.ent. 

The National Government justly and proudl}- boasts of 
having protected one poor and friendless foreigner, who had 
only declared his intention to become an American citizen, 
from the despotism of Austria, at the hazard of a bloody 
and expensive war. If, then, there be but one of its own 
citizens, born and bred on its own soil, who, despite the 
threatened punishment of traitors in rebellion against the 
United States, remains loyal to the Constitution and Union, 
shall he not be protected in his life, liberty, and property by 



140- 



tlie National Government? If the General Government have 
not power to protect the rights of all loyal citizens, then the 
gfovernment is a failure, and that provision of the National 
Constitution which says: "The United States shale 

GUARANTEE TO EVERY STATE IN THE UnION A REPUBLICAN 

FORM OP GOVERNMENT," is a dead letter, and worse than 
useless. 

But, Mr. Chairman, with a proper administration of the 
National Government it will neither be a dead letter nor use- 
less, and the future history of this g-overnment will prove 
how wisely, and with what sagacity and forethought our 
fathers acted when they inserted this invaluable provision in 
the Constitution, requiring the whole people to aid in sup- 
pressing rebellion, and securing the rights of all who either 
by numbers or military usurpation mig-ht be overpowered in 
any particular State or States. 

Mr. Chairman, all g-overnments must, from the very 
nature of the case, use force to execute their Executive, 
Legislative, and Judicial decrees, if resisted. This is a power 
inseparable from all g-overnments. If the city of New York, 
to-day, by the unanimous voice of her citizens, were to de- 
clare herself a sovereign and independent city, and set up a 
government of her own, put the authority of the National 
and State governments at defiance, and collect and appro- 
priate all the revenue derived from duties on imports, thus 
cutting off more than half the entire revenue of the National 
Government, does any sane man suppose for a moment that 
this government would tolerate it? By no means. If it be- 
came necessary to subdue her, the government would lay the 
entire city in ruins. Martial law would be declared, a block- 
ade proclaimed — the property of all rebels confiscated, and 
the leading traitors hanged or shot. The city of New York 
contains nearly a million of inhabitants, almost, if not quite, 
four times the number of whites in South Carolina, and, I 
believe, more wealth than any one Southern State, unless it 
be Virginia. The people living in the city of New York 
have just the same rig"ht to declare 'themselves out of the 
Union that the people of any one or more of the Southern 
States have — no more, no less. And that right is the in- 
herent right of revolution. The orovernment once involved 



— 141 — 

in war, in its efforts to enforce the laws and put down rebel- 
lion, could know no rule but success. A blockade, martial 
law, the confiscation of all property, real and personal, of 
the insurg-ents, the execution of all the leading- rebels and 

THE REMOVAL, BY FORCE IP NECESSARY, OF THE CAUSE THAT 
PRODUCED THE REBELLION. 

This is no new doctrine. John Quincy Adams, nearly 
twenty years ago, in the House of Representatives, in speak- 
ing- of the war power, said: 

"V/hen your country is actually in war, whether it be a 
war of invasion or a war of insurrection, Congress has power 
to carry on the war, and must carry it on according to the laws 
of war; and by the laws of war an invaded country has all its 
laws and municipal institutions swept by the board, and mar- 
tial law takes the place of them. This power in Congress 
has, perhaps, never been called into exercise under the 
present Constitution of the United States. But, when the 
laws of war are in force, what, I ask, is one of those laws? 
It is this: that when a country is invaded and two hostile 
armies are set in martial array, the commanders of both 
armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in the invaded 
territory. " 

This course is g-enerally indispensable with the insur- 
g-ents, in all revolutions, in order to "obtain indemnity for 
THE PAST, and SECURITY FOR THE FUTURE." The Constitu- 
tion makes the President of the United States the Commander 
in Chief of the Army and Navy, and he is required to see that 
the laws are faithfully executed. He cannot evade this just 
responsibility, if he would, unless he is a traitor. There is, 
then, but one course left after all peaceful remedies fail, and 
that is, to use all the power of the g-overnment to crush re- 
bellion and treason, if we would preserve the nation from 
certain and utter ruin. 

As to the powers and duties of the g-overnment, in case 
of rebellion, I quote and endorse in full the declarations of 
Henry Clay, made in a letter to Hon. Daniel Ullman and 
others, of New York, dated October 3d, 1850. In speaking 
of secession, he said: 

" Suppose the standard should be raised of open resist- 
ance to the Union, the Constitution, and laws, what is to be 
done? There can be but one possible answer. The power, 
the authority, and the dignity of the government ought to be 



— 142 — 

maintained, and resistance put down at all hazard.^ The 
duty of executing- the laws and suppressing- insurrections is 
without limitation or qualification; it is co-extensive with the 
jurisdiction of the United States. No human g-overnment 
can exist without the power of applying force, and the actual 
application of it in extreme cases. My belief is, that if it 
should be applied to South Carolina, in the event of her 
secession, she would be speedily reduced to obedience, and 
the Union, instead of being- weakened, would acquire addi- 
tional strength." 

And in a speech delivered in the United States Senate in 
1850, he said: 

"Now, Mr. President, I stand here in my place, meaning- 
to be unawed by any threats, whether they come from indi- 
viduals or from States. I should deplore as much as any 
man, living- or dead, that arms should be raised ag-ainst the 
authority of the Union, either by individuals or by States. 
But, after all that has occurred, if any one State, or a portion 
of the people of any one State, choose to place themselves in 
military array ag-ainst the g-overnment of the Union, I am 

FOR TRYING THK STRENGTH OF THE GOVERNMENT. I am 

for ascertaining whether we have a g-overnment or not — 
practical, efficient, capable of maintaining- its authority, and 
of upholding- the powers and interests which belong- to a g-ov- 
ernment. Nor, sir, am I to be alarmed or dissuaded from any 
such course by intimations of the spilling- of blood. If blood 
IS TO BE SPILT, BY WHOSE FAULT IS IT? Upon the supposition, 
I maintain it will be the fault of those who choose to raise 
the standard of disunion, and endeavor to prostrate this g-ov- 
ernment; and, sir, when that is done, so long- as it pleases 
God to g-ive me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm, 
weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that 
arm will be on the side of my country for the support of the 
g-eneral authority, and for maintenance of the powers of this 
Union." 

Ag-ain, in reply to some remarks of the Senator from 
South Carolina (Mr. Barnwell), Mr. Clay said: 

"Mr. President, I said nothing- with respect to the char- 
acter of Mr. Rhett (for I mig-ht as well name him). ^ I know 
him personally, and have some respect for him; but if he pro- 
nounced the sentiment attributed to him, of raising- the stan- 
dard of disunion and of resistance to the common g-overnment, 
whatever he has been, if he follows up that declaration by 
corresponding- overt acts, he is a traitor, and I hope will 
meet with the fate of a traitor ! " [Great applause in the 
g-alleries.] 



-143- 

Of South Carolina, he said: 

" I will tell her, and I will tell the Senator himself, that 
there are as brave, as dauntless, as g-allant men, and as devoted 
patriots, in my opinion, in every other State in the Union, as 
are to be found in South Carolina herself; and, if in any 
unjust cause South Carolina, or any other Statk, should 
hoist the flag- of disunion and rebellion, thousands, tens of 
thousands, of Kentuckians would flock to the standard of 
their country to dissipate and repress their rebellion. These 
are my sentiments — make the most of them." — [ App. Cong. 
GiwOBE, 1 SESS. 31 Cong. p. 1414.] 

Our first duty, then, it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, is to 
abolish all ports of entry which it may be inconvenient to 
occupy; to proclaim a blockade of all ports in the rebellious 
States; employ the navy in connection with privateers, who 
shall be authorized to capture and hold as prizes all vessels 
with their carg"oes leaving* any port without a clearance from 
an officer duly commissioned by the authorities of the United 
States, as also all vessels which might attempt to enter any 
of said ports without paying- the duties to an officer of the 
General Government. A blockade, such as I speak of, would 
be one of the most effective methods, without firing- a g-un, 
of opening- the eyes of the thoug-htless and reckless men in 
the South to the true condition into which they have so 
madly precipitated themselves. 

Their commerce, which consists almost entirely of ex- 
ports, would be utterly destroyed, so far as finding- outlets 
throug-h the present channels of trade. x\nd they would be 
forced to find outlets, for they must export to live — and they 
would be compelled to ship their cotton, rice, tobacco, etc., by 
way of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but princi- 
pally by way of Baltimore — which latter city would reap a 
harvest and enjoy a trade and prosperity which she has never 
known, furnishing, as she would be compelled to do, shipping- 
and exchang-e for three-fourths of the immense commerce that 
would thus be forced throug-h her g-ates, but which now finds 
outlets through other channels. 

This will be a matter at which it will be v/ell enoug"h for 
business men to look in the cities named, especially in 
Baltimore, if the National Government unfortunately should 
be driven to the necessity of adopting- the course I have indi- 



144 



cated — a course which I trust aud pray may never be neces- 
sary — but which, when necessary, I shall insist on being" 
adopted. 

Mr. Chairman. The President of the United States, in 
his late annual messag-e, charg-es upon the Northern people, 
and this charg-e is made the g-round of complaint by repre- 
sentatives from States now threatening- rebellion, that the 
free States of the Union are faithless to their constitutional 
oblig-ations; that they obstruct and resist the execution of 
constitutional laws enacted by Cong-ress, in which the South- 
ern States are deeply interested. 

Sir, this unfounded and slanderous charg-e of the Presi- 
dent has done much to inflame the public mind in the South, 
and I meet it right here, and most positively and unquali- 
fiedly deny it. Sir, there is not, there never has been, and I 
do not believe there ever will be, a constitutional obligation 
imposed upon the citizens of the free States that they will 
not faithfully and honorably discharg-e. True, here and 
there the laws of the National as well as the State govern- 
ments have been violated, but these are exceptions to the rule. 

The laws of Cong-ress and the decisions of the Supreme 
Court are, you know, Mr. Chairman, uniformly obeyed by the 
citizens of the entire North, and obej^ed, too, even thoug-h 
they may, in accordance with their hig-hest convictions of 
justice, regard some of them as infamous, as the}^ undoubt- 
edly do. Still the people of the Northern States have sub- 
mitted to them and prefer still to yield obedience to them 
until the people, in their majesty, shall demand, in a peace- 
ful and constitutional manner, their modification or repeal, 
and also the reversal, in a like peaceful and constitutional 
manner, of such decisions of the Supreme Court as they 
believe to be not only in violation of the plainest provisions 
of the Constitution, but also inhuman, barbarous and unjust. 
All this the citizens of the free States have done and will 
continue to do, rather than resort to revolution and blood- 
shed, and the overthrow and destruction of this g-overnment 
and Union, freig-hted as it is with the hopes of millions, and 
endeared to every patriot by the memories of the past and 
the hopes of the future. The Northern States ever have and 
will continue to abide bv the oblig-ations of the National 



— 145 — 

Constitution, whatever the South may do. The citizens of 
the free States have been taught to reg-ard the Constitution 
as the sheet anchor of their liberties, and they will not aban- 
don it, much less trample upon its just requirements. 

But the "Personal Liberty bills," as they are called, 
which some of the free States have felt themselves called 
on to pass to prevent kidnapping*, are seized upon and used 
by the "crises" manufacturers to inflame the Southern mind 
ag-ainst the North. Why has this matter never been thoug-ht 
of before, and brought to our notice? Some of these laws 
have been on the statute books of the free States for over 
twenty years, and no complaint has been made until now. 

Mr. Chairman. I can hardly find language with which 
properly to characterize this miserable pretext. It is one of the 
most flimsy shams ever resorted to by any set of men to hide 
their real designs. Why, sir, it is so contemptible that even 
South Carolina secessionists are too honorable to use it. In 
their convention her leading men do not attempt to justify 
their treason on such grounds, or because of the election of 
Mr. Lincoln, or the non-execution of the fugitive slave act. 
Indeed, on the seventh and eighth days of the sitting of the 
secession convention, in the course of the debate on the 
causes that induced South Carolina to take her present posi- 
tion, Mr. Packer said — 

" It is no spasmodic effort that has come suddenly upon 
us, but it has been gradually culminating for a long series of 
years." 

Mr. Inglis said: "Most of us have had this subject 
under consideration for the last twenty years." 

Mr. Keitt said: "I have been engaged in this movement 
ever since I entered political life." 

Mr. Rhett said: "It is nothing produced by Mr. Lin- 
coln's election, or the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. 
It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty 
years." 

And before this, in their discussions, Messrs. Rhett, 
Spratt, and others, declared their opinion that the fugitive 
SLAVE LAW IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Judge Withers, in an able 
speech, said it was unconstitutional. 
10 



— 146 — 

Mr. Keitt said: "I have great doubts myself about the 
fugitive slave law. The Constitution was at first a compact 
between the States; secondly, a treaty between sections. It 
was something more than a compact between the States. I 
believe, therefore, that this law ought to have been left to the 
execution of the various States." 

But, Mr. Chairman, what are the "Personal Liberty 
bills " which some of the free States have passed? Tliey are 
simply laws to prevent the kidnapping of their own citizens. 
They are just such laws in substance as may be found on the 
statute books of most of the Southern States to prevent tlie 
kidnapping of their free and slave people. 

I have looked over these acts of the free States cm this 
subject, and find that they were not, as many suppose, passea 
expressly to obstruct the execution of anv law of Congress. 
Many of these laws were passed to conform to the decision of 
the Supreme Court in the case of Prigg vs. Pennsvlvania, 
which declared substantially that it was not the duty of a 
State to pass laws for the arrest and rendition of fugitive 
slaves, and that Congress alone had exclusive jurisdiction 
over the subject. 

The law of Vermont provides that all officers of the 
United States and their deputies shall be exempt from the 
provisions of their " liberty bill " while in the discharge of 
their of&cial duty. The proviso reads as follows: 

"This act, however, shall not be construed to extend to 
any citizen of the State acting as a Judge of the Circuit or 
District Court of the United States, or as a Marshal or Deputy 
Marshal of the district of Vermont, or to any person acting 
under the command or authority of said courts or marshal." 

Nineteen-twentieths of those who are prating about 
Northern "Personal Liberty bills," know nothing about 
them. Nevertheless, they do not hesitate boldly to declare 
that they are unconstitutional. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not assume to speak for all the 
Northern States; but I can say with great confidence (and I 
have no doubt but what other gentlemen will speak for their 
States, and give the same pledge) that if the Legislature of 
Ohio should at any time pass an unconstitutional law — 
which is not all improbable, as their own local laws are 



— 147 — 

frequently adjudg-ed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court 
of the State — I say, if such a law should at any time be 
passed, whether conflicting" with the fug"itive slave bill or any 
other act of Cong-ress, it will be repealed whenever the Su- 
preme Court declares it unconstitutional. Can the represen- 
tatives from the States who complain of these "Personal 
Liberty bills " in fairness ask anything- more? Are they will- 
ing", in turn, to g-ive the North the same pledg-e of loyalty? 
Most of the States now in rebellion against the g-overnment 
have, and have had for many years, laws on their statute 
books, the most inhuman, and, as we believe, unconstitutional 
— laws which enslave our free people, who are g"uilty of no 
crime, but are enslaved for life simply for coming- into the 
State. The authorities of some of the free States have sent 
commissioners to one or more of these Southern States, to 
test, in a leg-al and peaceful manner, the constitutionality of 
such laws; but they have not only never been permitted to do so, 
but g-entlemen of distinction who have visited the Southern 
States for that purpose, have been driven from the South hy 
mobs. There never has been, and I think I may safely say 
there never will be, such an outrag-e committed by the citi- 
zens of any of the free States on a Southern man whom a 
State might send North on such a mission. Any g-entleman 
whom the authorities of a Southern State may choose to 
commission to a free State, or who may come of his own will 
and pleasure, to test the constitutionality of any of our laws, 
whether they be our "Personal Liberty bills," or any others, 
will be received and treated as a g-entleman. And the de- 
cision of our hig-hest judicial tribunal, whether in accordance 
with our views or not, will be strictly and in g-ood faith 
obeyed. 

The Leg-islature of my State a few years ag-o passed a 
law, known with us as the crowbar law, to tax banks the 
same as other property — a law which they not only believed 
to be just, but also constitutional. The banks resisted the 
payment of the tax. Suits were commenced to test its con- 
stitutionality. The Supreme Court of Ohio sustained the law, 
and declared it constitutional. It was carried to the Supreme 
Court of the United States, and they pronounced the law un- 
constitutional. The Legislature, in compliance with that 



— 148 — 

decision, repealed the law, and appropriated money to refund 
to the banks the taxes thus declared to have been illeg-ally col- 
lected. I mention this act as one that came within my own 
personal knowledg-e. I could name others, had I time, which 
would show the law-abiding and loyal character of the entire 
Northern people. But it is not necessary. A majority of the 
people of Ohio believed then and believe now that that law 
was constitutional, and that the decision of the Supreme 
Court of the United States was wrong-; yet they obeyed its 
mandates, because it was the court of last resort, and disobe- 
dience would be nullification. 

Mr. Chairman, our calumniators in the North have de- 
ceived and are to-day deceiving- the honest people of the South, 
as to the character and purpose of the masses of men who 
make up the Republican part5^ They are told that "the 
North had g-ot to be utterly lost to all sense of truth or false- 
hood, right or wrong; that everything good gave way before 
senseless sympathy for black men to such a degree that to 
steal property, incite to insurrection, rapine, and murder, 
were every-day sights." Sir, a more shameless falsehood 
never fell from the lips of man or devil. In the estimation 
of all honorable men, a wilful falsifier is of all men the most 
despicable, and the utterer of this base slander on his own State 
and neighbors has at last found the depths of infamy. There 
cannot be one fact adduced upon which to rest so monstrous a 
charge. There is no evidence of this alleged hatred on the 
part of the North. No Southern man or woman visiting the 
North, either for business or pleasure, was ever beaten with 
stripes, tarred and feathered, imprisoned, or murdered by any 
cowardly mobs, or Ijmch-law courts, no matter what their 
opinions might be on any subject, however obnoxious, or 
however offensively they might have proclaimed them. I 
wish as much could be said, and as truthfully, of every South- 
ern State. 

Sir, I say to Southern gentlemen, and I say it with pride, 
that a more law-abiding, peaceful, constitutional and union- 
loving people cannot be found in any part of the country than 
the great body of those who make up the rank and file of the 
Republican party. Indeed they are pre-eminently distin- 
guished, wherever known, for the conscientious discharge of 



— 149 — 

every duty, public and private, for their sobriety and Chris- 
tian character, for their love of peace, for their unselfish 
philanthropy and a love of the human race, which is circum- 
scribed by no narrow limits, but embraces in its cosmopolitan 
liberality the people of every nation and every relig-ious 
creed. 

If this be true, I am asked why we permit such slan- 
derers as the author of the extract just read to utter their 
falsehoods throug"hout the North. I answer, because we are 
not fearful of falsehood, where free speech and*a free press is 
left free to combat it before an intelligent people. Wherever 
such slanders are uttered in the North they are harmless. 
They oug-ht to be and would be harmless with you in the 
South, if you tolerated free speech and a free press. The 
utterer oi this slanderer is like the desperate g-ambler, who, 
having" lost character, position, everything" that a manly man 
could desire, is playing" the last card upon the political board, 
with a recklessness befitting- his desperate condition, hoping" 
almost ag-ainst hope to be promoted, by the dying" political 
org"anization now in charge of the government, to a posi- 
tion once dignified and made honorable by a Jay, a Story, 
and a Marshall. How infamous and wicked must an adminis- 
tration be where ♦promotions to high and honorable positions 
are more readily secured by such baseness than by an honor- 
able, manly, upright bearing. 

John Randolph, of Virginia, once said, when rebuking 
those whom he justly called doughfaces, "that he did not 
envy the head or heart of that man who could rise here and 
defend slavery on principle." I would, sir, that we had a 
Randolph, a Jefferson, and a McDowell to speak here to-day, 
for the South and to the South. 

Mr. Chairman. It is a mistake, and our Southern breth- 
ren are deceived in supposing that opposition to slavery in 
the free States is the result of political preaching or political 
parties. It is a still greater mistake to suppose that thia 
opposition has become so formidable as it has because of 
political demagogues seeking" office. This sentiment of oppo- 
sition to slavery has existed from the day the Pilgrims landed 
on Plymouth rock, and ever will exist, not only with their 
children but with the great body of the Christian world. It 



— 150 — 

has grown in spite of political preaching-, in spite of dema- 
gog"ues, and in spite of doughfaces, of whom the North has, 
I am sorry to say, quite as many to-day as when Randolph 
g-ave them a name so characteristic of their depravit}-. 

In Canada, on our northern border, in Eng-land, and 
France, and indeed throug-hout all Europe the hostility to 
slavery is far g-reater and more unanimous than in any of the 
free States of the American Union. And those who are its 
most uncompromising- opponents in the countries named can- 
not and never expect to obtain of&ce or political promotion 
because of their opposition to the system. The}^ are not 
and never have been influenced by any such sordid considera- 
tions. Neither are the g-reat body of the citizens of the free 
States, who are and always have been opposed to slavery, 
go.verned in their opposition by any such considerations. It 
is a feeling" of human nature which cannot be overcome, a 
"prejudice," if you will, which cannot be "conquered" at 
the bidding- of any man or party. 

Three-fourths of the civilized and Christian world look 
upon the trade of man-stealing- and man-selling- as a piratical 
commerce, to be prohibited and abolished wherever g-overn- 
ments have the power. And if there never had been any 
United States Senators and Representatives ^n Congress made 
elective by the people in the free States, and there were no 
offices to be filled there by appointment of the President of 
the United States, the hostility to this execrable commerce in 
the free States would have been five-fold greater than it is. 
And without the aid which the North has given to the slavery 
interest, it would be powerless to-day. For the truth is, the 
National Government in the hands of slaveholders, as it has 
been three-fourths of the time since its organization, has 
debauched and corrupted the public mind of the North, and 
in the name of democrac}^, has been able to keep possession 
of the government, while extending, strengthening, and 
nationalizing slavery. 

Mr. Chairman. Liberty is one of the grandest and most 
God-like aspirations of the human heart; it is a sentiment 
which cannot be eradicated by compromises or part}- plat- 
forms. No, nor by cburch creeds either. It is a feeling 



— 151 — 

implanted in tlie breast of every intellig-ent human soul by 
the hand of the Creator, and bars and bolts and prisons can- 
not eradicate it. It is the morning- and evening- prayer of every 
slave, and the late Governor McDowell, of Virginia, never 
uttered a more sublime truth than when he said: 

"You may place the slave where you please; you may 
dry up to your uttermost the fountains of his feelings, the 
springs of his thoughts; you may close upon his mind every 
avenue to knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial night; 
you may yoke him to labor as an ox which liveth only to work, 
and worketh only to live; you may put him under any process 
which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase 
and crush him as a rational being; you may do all this, and 

THE IDEA THAT HE WAS BORN FREE WILL SURVIVE IT ALE. It 

is allied to his hope of immortality; it is the eternal part of 
his nature, which oppression cannot reach. It is a torch lit 
up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be 
extinguished by the hand of man." 

Mr. Chairman. The people of the North hold these 
sentiments to-day, as they ever have and as I trust they ever 
will. What wonder, then, that when called upon to extend by 
their vote this institution, so obnoxious to them and the 
moral sense of the civilized world, that they should be found, 
as a body, in opposition to it. The only wonder, sir, is that 
there is any division in the free States on the subject. On 
this question' a large majority of the citizens of all parties 
in the free States stand to-day where Washington and 
Adams, Jefferson and Franklin, Hancock and Jay, stood in 
the days of the revolution, and where Clay and the leading 
men of all parties, political as well as religious, stood thirty 
and forty years ago. 

When Henry Clay was called upon in 1850 to vote to 
legalize slavery in the National Territories, he indignantly 
refused, and< declared, in language which will live as long as 
any sen1>iment his great heart ever conceived, or his eloquent 
lips ever uttered, "that no earthly power could induce him 
to do it." I will quote the extract. In reply to Senator 
Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, he said — 

"I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Missis- 
sippi say that he requires, first the extension of the Missouri 
Compromise line to the Pacific, and, also, that he is not 



152- 



satisfied with that, but requires, if I understood him cor- 
rectly, a positive provision for the admission of slavery south 
of that line. And now, sir, coming- from a slave State, as 1 
do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the sub- 
ject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for 
a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it 
had not before existed, either south or north of that line. 
Coming*, as I do, from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliber- 
ate, and well matured determination that no power — no 
earthly power — shall compel me to vote for the positive in- 
troduction of slavery either south or north' of that line. 
While 5-0U reproach, and justly, our British ancestors for the 
introduction of this institution upon the continent of North 
America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the 
present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall 
reproach us for doing- what we reproach Great Britain for 
doing- for us." 

Need any of the men of to-day in this House hesitate or 
fear to stand as firmly in opposition to the extension of sla- 
very as the g-reat Kentucky statesman stood only ten years 
ag-o? 

To the same effect spoke the distinguished Senator from 
the slave State of Delaware, the late John M. Clayton. In 
a speech in the Senate of the United States, August 3, 1848, 
he said — 

"Does any man expect that, from this time forth to the 
end of the republic, the North will ever again consent to ex- 
tend slavery by act of Congress into any free territory, 
and thus increase that alleg-ed inequality of representation in 
the other House, arising- out of the enumeration of three- 
fifths of slaves in the apportionment of its members, which 
has ever been the foundation of their most bitter complaints? 
Try that question when )^ou may in that House, an over- 
•whelming- majority will ever appear ag-ainst such an extension. 
I have never voted for such an act of Cong-ress, because, in 
my deliberate opinion, it would be wrong-, and never could be 
justified, except as a measure to be resorted to in an extreme 
case, involving- the very existence of the Union. 

"I am no advocate of slavery, or of its extension. Like 
my friend from Maryland (Mr. Johnson), I hold no slaves, 
and I fully concur in the opinion which he expressed a year 
ago, 'that slavery is a moral, social, and political evil — to 
be removed, however, only by those who are immediately 
interested in it.' These are the deliberate opinions of thou- 
sands and tens of thousands in Maryland, Virg-inia, Delaware, 



— 153 — 

and Kentucky — all slaveholding- States. . . . Opinions g-o 
far beyond ours in the non-slaveholding- States. They view 
slavery as aneradicable curse, and will never consent, in any 
EVENT, to its extension, unless where the Constitution car- 
ries it. 

"Sir, it is time the South understood her true position. 
She can no longer control this question. He who supposes 
that a threat of disunion will alarm the potent men of the 
North labors under a great mistake. To them disunion has 
no terrors." 

Mr. Chairman, every concession made by the majority 
of any people in any government, to the minority, under 
menaces and threats, but emboldens and makes that minority 
more exacting- and imperious in their demands. All past 
compromises, as they were called — concessions, as they were 
in fact — to the slave interest, prove the truth of this declar- 
ation. So domineering has this slave interest become, be- 
cause of these concessions, that they now threaten the utter 
destruction of the g-overnment, unless every demand they 
make is immediately complied with. Indeed, it has been 
seriously intimated that Abraham Lincoln, who has been 
selected by the people as their Chief Magistrate for the ensu- 
ing four years from the fourth of March next, will never be 
inaugurated in this capital ; that the city of Washington will 
be in the hands of traitors before that time, and the seat 
of government of the proposed Democratic slave empire. In 
ansv>/-er to this, sir, I have just this to say : that in any event 
— yes, sir, in any event — Mr. Lincoln will be inaugurated 
President of the United States in this city, and that this 
capital, with all its magnificent structures and its venerable 
traditions, will remain the seat of government of this Repub- 
lic ; I mean, sir, that it will remain the seat of government 
of those loyal States who. come what may, with patriotic 
fidelity v/ill remain true to the old Constitution, and faith- 
fully adhere to the principles upon which the government was 
founded. The eighteen millions of freemen in the North will 
never allow it to be otherwise. Should the conspirators, how- 
ever, ever succeed — which is hardly within the rang-e of 
human probability — in establishing their proposed slave 
empire, Washington City will never be its capital. So long-, 
sir, as it shall remain a capital at all, the banner of liberty. 



— 154 — 

with its stars and stripes, shall float from its dome, or none 
— the black banner of slavery and disunion, never! 

Mr. Chairman, our duty, as the representatives of the 
people, is to meet like men this off-recurring" and exciting 
question which is again presented for our consideration. 
Not selfishly, as maintaining consistency; not hastily, through 
fear; not in anger, or red-hot wrath; but calmly, firmly, 
courteously, in view of the great responsibility resting upon 
each member, and the momentous consequences that may 
follow the casting of a single vote. 

Sir, I would not knowingly or willingly do or say one 
word that would have a tendency to light up the torch of 
civil and servile war, for I feel that the two will be insepa- 
rable — that the one cannot come without the other; and I 
pray Heaven that such a calamity may not only be spared 
my own kindred, but the people of every Southern State. I 
am for peace; the great body of the citizens with whom it is 
my pride and pleasure to act are for peace — they are men of 
peace. And no language that I can command will more 
forcibly express the sentiments of the entire constituency 
whom I have the honor to represent than the following lines 
from our own Quaker poet, John G. Whittier. They were writ- 
ten a short time after the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. 
His execution was the occasion which called them forth. I 
endorse every line and every thought, and appl}' them to-day 
■ — as he then applied them to Virginia — to all the Southern 
States, so far as interfering in an}' unlawful manner with 
their local affairs. 

" Perish with him the folly 

That seeks through evil good, 
Long live the; generous purpose 

Unstained with human blood ! 
Not the raid of midnight terror. 

But the thought which underlies ; 
Not the outlaw's pride of daring 

But the Christian's sacrifice. 



— 155 — 

** Oh. I never may yon blue-ridged hills 

The northern rifle hear, 
Nor see the light of blazing homes 

Flash on the negro's spear. 
But let the free-winged angel Truth 

Their guarded passes scale, 
To teach that right is more than might 

And justice more than mail I 

*' So vainly shall Virginia set 

Her battle in array ; 
In vain her trampling squadrons knead 

The winter snow with clay. 
She may strike the pouncing eagle 

But she dare not harm the dove ; 
And every gate she bars to Hate 

Shall open wide to Love ! " 

Mr. Chairman, we should have had peace if we had had 
an Executive with firmness and courage, one who at a proper 
time would have driven traitors from his Cabinet, and called 
to his councils Union-loving and patriotic men, instead of 
entering into secret negotiations with the conspirators. 

Sir, one of the most melancholy spectacles this genera- 
tion has been called to witness, and, I may add, one of the 
most melancholy I hope they may ever live to witness, has 
been the utter failure of James Buchanan to administer this 
Government. Called to the Chief Magistracy by the voice of 
a generous and confiding people, he found the nation in a state 
of prosperity which it had never known, with an overflowing 
Treasury, and a large majority of his political friends in both 
houses of Congress. He is now to retire from the position to 
which, in an evil hour, he was unfortunately elevated, 
utterly disgraced. His party defeated, the Treasury bank- 
rupt, the business of the country prostrate, and the whole 
nation convulsed by the action of a band of conspirators who, 
if not with his complicity, with the complicity, at least, of a 
majority of his late Cabinet, were attempting, and to-day are 
determined, if possible, to destroy the Government, which he 
and they had alike sworn to maintain and defend. 



— 156 — 

He has failed as no President has ever failed before him, 
and failed only because destitute of that firmnes"3 and moral 
integ-rity necessary (when surrounded as he has been by the 
most unscrupulous) to discharg-e the plain and unmistakable 
duties imposed upon him by the Constitution. His vacilla- 
tion and want of courage has driven the country from a state 
of unexampled prosperity and peace to the very brink of ruin 
and civil war, and we are to-day in a condition that no other . 
nation with such an executive head could be in for a single 
hour without revolution. Our only hope is in the loyalty and 
patriotism of the people. This, I trust, will enable us to 
withstand the storm until the fourth of March, when the 
Government will, I am sure, pass into other and better hands. 

With the retirement of Mr. Buchanan, we have also the 
destruction of the political organization of which, for so 
many years, he has been a leader. This party, claiming to 
be Democratic, has been one of the most wonderful organiza- 
tions known in the history of this or any other country hav- 
ing a popular form of government. Professing the broadest 
liberalism, the greatest veneration for constitutional liberty, 
and assuming to recognize to the fullest extent the binding 
obligations of all compacts and compromises, as well as a 
most sacred regard for the rights of all men, its leaders have 
not scrupled to apologize for the vilest despotism, nor hesitated 
to trample upon the Constitution as upon all compacts and 
compromises, and every right of human nature. They have 
not hesitated, until the break-up at Charleston and Baltimore, 
at supporting any and every demand, however monstrous, 
when made by the slave barons. In past years the resources 
of this wonderful party seemed inexhaustible and its power 
invincible No matter what its leader said or did, the party 
was successiul. It defied and in turn prostrated all parties 
which contested its claims for power, and in its triumphal 
march all opposition and combinations fell before it as by the 
hand of magic. So blinded were the people by its fair 
promises and captivating name. But to-day, thanks to a free 
press and free speech, all this is changed, and its prestige is 
gone, its glory has departed, its hold upon the heart of the 
people is broken, and the sceptre of power is about to pass 



— 157 — 

from Its hands into those of a young- and generous party, rep- 
resenting- the republican principles of Jefferson. 

Mr. Chairman. There are thirty millions of people in 
this country; of this number twenty-five millions, at least, 
are opposed to the extension of slavery into any national 
Territory, and would never vote at the ballot box to sanction 
such a proposition, much less ag-ree to give it additional 
guarantees, and make it perpetual by an amendment to the 
Constitution. This immense moral power, with all the civi- 
lized and Christian world to sympathize with it, wielded 
peacefully and constitutionally against slavery, as I trust 
it ever will be, cannot fail eventually to put it in the course 
of ultimate extinction, and ere long the citizens of the slave 
States, in their own way, will put away this evil and wrong 
from among them. This is the faith and hope of the Repub- 
lican party, and, as I have said before, I will keep this faith 
or none. 

If, however, civil war is forced upon the nation for the 
purpose of extending and making slavery perpetual, he must 
indeed be blind who does not see that the system will go out 
in blood. Twenty-five millions of people who not only have 
no interest in slavery, but whose pecuniary interests are 
against it, as well as their political and religious views, will 
never submit to the dictation of a privileged class numbering 
less than half a million. May God in his mercy avert the 
catastrophe of civil and servile war. But if it must come, I 
pray that the doom of slavery, which will be inevitable, may 
not also prove the doom of the slave masters; that we may 
not see re-enacted in any part of our country the bloody hor- 
rors of St. Domingo; for, as Jefferson said, "the Almighty 
has no attributes that can take sides v/ith the slave masters 
in such a contest." 

Mr. Chairman. If it were possible for the people of the 
United States to permit the Union to be dissolved and allow 
a Southern confederacy to be permanently established it would 
be a confederated despotism more intolerant than any govern- 
ment of the nineteenth century. Those who have heretofore 
been the boasted champions of what thej' have been pleased to 
call democracy, do not hesitate now to declare, in case of the 



— 158 — 

establlsliment of a Southern confederacy that everything- like 
democracy is to be ig-nored. Popular g-overnment is a failure! 
exclaim the leaders of this Southern revolution, who, until 
now, have been loudest in declaiming for the sovereignty of 
the people. Popular government is a failure! respond the mad 
disunion pro-slavery democracy. Popular government is a fail- 
ure! is echoed back by many of the so-called conservatives, who 
a few months ago were clamorous for "the preservation of the 
Union and the enforcement of the laws." Popular govern- 
ment is a failure! say the slave barons, who are attempting to 
establish a slave empire, and who insist that a government 
must be established which shall prohibit free speech and a 
free press, for with them these are also a failure. Popular 
government is a failure! shout this band of conspirators of all 
former political parties and all religious creeds, who unite in 
demanding that a strong military government shall be estab- 
lished, excluding all from a voice in its deliberations who have 
not a pecuniary interest in maintaining the institution of 
slavery. 

They desire a government in which the slave masters 
shall govern as the Bourbons in Europe claimed to have gov- 
erned, by the grace of God, and that the poor whites shall 
submit. And, as I said in some remarks which I made upon 
this subject at the last session, this despotism will have to be 
resisted, "or the poor whites of the South will first be dis- 
franchised, then classed socially as they are to-day, to a great 
extent, with the servile race, and at last they and their chil- 
dren will be melted down in the slave population forever." 
The men who are seeking the destruction of this Union and 
the establishment of such a government are the identical 
men who for the past twenty-five years have dictated the 
policy, controlled the political action of all their conventions, 
and finally destroyed the old Democratic party in all the free 
States. What wonder that the Northern wing of this old 
party should have been repudiated by the people, when their 
leaders surrendered to the demands of this slave interest, and 
while professing democracy, abandoned the principles of 
Jefferson and joined in an effort to make this a slave empire. 



— 159 — 

Thos. S. Grimke, of South Carolina, one of the noblest 
and truest of men, in a speech of g-reat power and eloquence, 
while denouncing" the nullification movement of Calhoun in 
1833, referred to the certainty of slave insurrections, as also 
the ultimate loss of liberty to the poor whites in case of civil 
war, which he reg-arded as certain to follow an attempt to 
enforce the doctrines of nullification. He said — 

"These insurrections would be followed by depreciation 
of property, not only in negroes, but of all kinds of wealth, 
and at the same time the necessities of war would require an 
amount of taxation that could be enforced only by a military 
g-overnment, under which even the liberties of the whites 
will soon perish." 

If there is disunion and civil war, it will be no fault of 
the Northern people. If there should be servile insurrections, 
the people of the free States cannot be justly charged with 
inciting" it. It will be the fault of the very men who, in their 
madness to sustain slavery, have inflamed not only the minds 
of the whites, but of the slave population also. 

A traveler returning- to France under the reign of Louis 
XVI., after an absence of many years, was asked what 
changes he found. " Nothing," he answered, " save that the 
people are now saying in the streets what was formerly only 
said at the dinner tables and in the drawing rooms of the lead- 
ing men in Paris." 

The traveler was right. " The idea of liberty had gone 
down to the people. Philosophy in a deep and thrilling 
voice had told the injured of their rights as men; it had re- 
minded them of their many galling wrongs. Habit still 
made them suffer in silence, but the seeds of future vengeance 
were sown." That vengeance was the French revolution. 

The slaves in the South, waiting upon their masters at 
the dinner tables, at all political meetings, indeed every- 
where, hear the Republican party denounced and Mr. Lincoln 
called their friend. They hear their masters declare that he 
is to liberate them by force if necessary, and place them on a 
social and political equality with the whites. The slave 
catches up their thoughts; vague notions of freedom take 
possession of him; he meditates upon it; he communicates it 
from cabin to cabin, from plantation to plantation, and thus 



160 



are the seeds of insurrections sown by the slave masters, and 
insurrections in time are sure to follow, whether the South is 
in or out of the Union. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I am asked how I propose to adjust 
our present difficulties. I answer, by accommodating* our- 
selves to the log-ic of events; by jaelding- to that which is in- 
evitable, and obeying" the deliberately expressed will of the 
nation. The people of the United States are not only tired, 
but disg"usted with these everlasting- diplomatic tricks called 
"compromises," patched up by slave barons and political 
quacks on the one side, and commercial timidity and northern 
flunkeyism on the other. We have had enoug"h of these 
crafty tricks, which have decided nothing"; which, instead 
of settling" the difficulty, have postponed but to ag"gravate it, 
leaving" the ever-recurring" dispute to be ag-ain "settled "by 
the next g"eneration. The difficulties that environ us to-day 
are as well understood as they can be after another contest 
of twenty-five years. The truth is, slavery is g^asping* for 
breath; it is strug"g"ling" for a new lease of life; it demands 
g"uarantees that shall make the lease perpetual, but if you 
will not g"ive that, it will "compromise" with less. But 
whether you accede to its demands or not, the log"ic of events 
tells me unmistakably that slavery must die. The judg"ment 
of the civilized and Christian world decrees it. Emancipa- 
tion is the sentiment of all nations, and we cannot resist it if 
we would, and oug"ht not to do it if we could. What the 
people of this country want, what they expect and demand 
at our hands, is not new truces with slavery, btit a permanent 
settlement of this question in the only way it ever can be 
settled to g"ive peace and contentment to the country, and 
that is, to settle it, wherever the national jurisdiction extends, 
by the just rule of rig"ht and liberty. 

Shall we meet and solve this problem like men, fairly, 
honorably, and without dissimulation, and as the better 
promptings of our hearts dictate; or shall we skulk and dodge 
like the tricksters of an hour? Shall we meet the question 
like statesmen, leg-islating" for the generations to come as 
well as our own, or shall we shift the responsibility, with all. 



— 161 — 

its accumulated complications, upon those who must succeed 
us? 

Mr. Chairman, the people of the United States have been 
earnestly strug-g-ling-, in one form or another, with this g-iant 
evil of slavery for nearly half a century; and though often 
betrayed by their leaders into what were called "com- 
promises," the faith of the masses has remained unshaken, 
and they have continued hopeful. Though often defeated in 
their political struggles for obtaining possession of the govern- 
ment, the}^ have always been loyal, and never threatened or 
attempted rebellion or revolution. This struggle between the 
people on the one side, and a privileged class on the other, 
has been such a struggle as the world has never witnessed, 
because it has been conducted peacefully and lawfully. No 
war, no desolated homes, no hatred, but a generous, noble, 
self-sacrificing struggle, that must challenge the admiration 
of the world, accomplished as it has been, by peaceful citizens, 
in the mode and manner prescribed by the Constitution, by 
the silent but all-potent power of the ballot. No man could 
have been a disinterested witness to this grand struggle, and 
beheld its first triumph without feeling that " peace hath her 
victories no less renowned than war." With the old watch- 
word of "Freedom and Peace," we have conquered, and to- 
day the liberty-loving men of all nations join in hailing with 
pride the advancing chief, the chosen of the people. The 
consequences of this peaceful victory no man can foresee. 
The effect of its example on the nations will be incalculable, 
even though we should have some trouble with those who 
are seeking to destroy the Government because they cannot 
long-er administer it. It will reinstate us where we were in 
the days of Washington, in the respect and affections of the 
people of Europe, and the American Government, if true to the 
ideas upon which the triumph of which I am speaking- has been 
achieved, will from this time forward hold the first position 
among the powers of the earth, and as a nation and people, 
we shall, as we ought, hold the first place in history for 
many generations to come. If, however, we should fail, from 
any cause, to carry out in g-ood faith, this grand decree of the 
people; if through fear deceptive compromises are forced 
11 



— 162 — 

upon us, and the people are ag"ain betrayed under the pretense 
of appeasing" those whose whole history gives us the as- 
surance that they will be satisfied with nothing" short of hav- 
ing" slaver}^ recognized as property by constitutional provision, 
those who aid in accomplishing" this great wrong" will deserve, 
as they will receive, the condemnation of all liberty-loving" 
men. 

But I am told that the people demand that such con- 
cessions and compromises shall be granted. Sir, I deny it. 
I have seen no evidence of it and do not believe it. I g"rant 
you, sir, that there are some who demand it; the leaders of the 
party which have just been driven from power by an indig- 
nant people, demand it, and are supported in their imperious 
demands by almost the entire slave interest of the country; 
but the great body of the people, the millions, not only do not 
demand it, but I tell you, sir, that they will never tolerate it. 
Sir, I should be loath to believe that those who, through so 
many long and weary years, have struggled hopefully on 
amid disasters and defeats, the desertions of pretended friends 
and false leaders, could, in the hour of their triumph, advise 
a surrender to the minority, and consent to abandon that 
cause which alone made success in the late campaign possible. 
I cannot believe that the people, under the menace of dis- 
union and revolution, will ever take a step backward, that 
they will, in so cowardly a manner, give up ever}^ principle 
for which they have been so heroically battling for years. 
No, no; this grand array of millions which has withstood so 
many defeats while battling for the right, will march on 
and march on under the banner of "Peace," conquering and 
to conquer. No earthly power can stay it. In its triumphal 
progress it will know no barrier but justice, no restraint but 
the just restraints of the Constitution. Missouri compromises 
and all other compromise lines which you may establish in 
your puny efforts to secure new guarantees to slavery, will 
fade like the baseless fabric of a vision before its advancing 
tread. This Government was not organized for the purpose 
of making slavery universal and perpetual; but to "establish 

JUSTICE, INSURE DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY, PROVIDE FOR THE 
COMMON DEFENSE, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, AND 



— 163 — 

secure; the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our 
posterity." 

This was the cherished purpose of the fathers when they 
launched this great ship of state, the Constitution, upon the 
yet troubled waters which were crimsoned with the blood of 
the Revolution. They firmly believed that she would weather 
every storm. In this faith they laid them down to rest, and 
committed to those who should come after them its direction 
and g-overnment. Shall we, their sons, falter and desert her 
now, when storms and tempests beat against her, or shall 
we, like true mariners, stand firmly at the post of duty and 
danger? Shall we, with the very dawn of the morning beam- 
ing upon us, give up all, and, without a struggle, let the 
tempest and darkness close around her and engulf all in one 
common ruin? or shall we cling to the good old ship, and 
put a new commander upon her deck, who will g-o back to 
the old chart, put her head to the storm, and man her with 
freemen instead of slaves? 

Mr. Chairman, to a patriot and lover of his country 
there would seem to be but one course. The voices of the 
people echo but one cry, but one command, and that is: 
"Save the good ship Constitution from her present peril!'* 
If we fail to do this we are not the men for the hour. If 
need be, party ties must be severed and party divisions for- 
gotten; sectional animosities must cease, and a union of all 
freedom-loving men secured tor the sake of liberty and the 
Union. If while the coming- dawn foreshadows the deliver- 
ance of all nations and the freedom of every race, we alone 
are found destroying the most perfect form of government 
ever given to man, in a struggle to make slavery perpetual, 
of all men we will be the most guilty. Shall history record 
this, the darkest of crimes, against our names? Shall our 
children execrate our memories because we were traitors and 
cowards, and, for an hour of promised peace and commercial 
prosperity, consented to our own and their degradation and 
the endless bondage of millions? Shall it be said that while 
thrones throughout Europe are falling, and long oppressed 
races are everywhere claiming and asserting- their God-given 
rights; while a free press is proclaiming that this is the gol- 



164 



den age of justice that precedes the year of a universal jubilee, 
when the people of all nations will be marching- to the joyful 
sound of liberty and independence — shall it be said of us, I 
say, that, under our direction, the Republic established by 
Washing-ton, alone is relapsing- into despotism? At a time 
when the sons of strug-g-ling humanity are loosing- the bonds 
which have bound them for ag-es, and, in obedience to the 
Divine command, are "permitting the oppressed to go free," 
shall the freemen of this country consent to rerivet the chains 
of the slave, and thus aid those who are seeking permanently 
to establish and extend this despotism throughout all the free 
Territories of the nation? 

While Italy, after a struggle of centuries, under the 
guidance of her brave Garibaldi (who is to Italy to-day what 
Washington was to us), is marching in unity to secure the 
enjoyment of constitutional liberty, and Hungary and Ger- 
many are keeping step to the universal march of nations, 
while Russia is emancipating her millions of slaves, and all 
peoples, under every form of government, are advancing 
toward the dawn of that civilization which liberty always 
brings, shall the people of the United States, who have the 
grandest government committed to their keeping which the 
world has ever seen, alone be found struggling to make the 
rule of slavery universal? Can an American representative 
in such an hour as this, either from motives of personal 
ambition or sordid pecuniary interest, consent to foster strife, 
division, and discord, and without hesitancy or remorse give 
his vote to drive back both citizens and government toward 
the night of despotism and barbarism? 

God grant, sir, that ever}^ representative may pause and 
consider well the momentous consequences of every vote he 
may be called upon to cast before giving it in favor of any 
of the numerous compromise schemes and proposed constitu- 
tional amendments which are sought to be forced upon us, 
and which, if adopted, will be but another step, so far as the 
action of this body can decree it, toward making slavery con- 
stitutional and perpetual in this so-called land of liberty. 



IMPORTANT LETTER FROM HON. J. M. ASHLEY. 



Washington, May 24, 1861. 

Editor Blade: I protested in my former letter, as I 
ag-ain protest in this, and as I hope the Blade and the peo- 
ple everywhere will protest, against our soldiers being- used 
for the accursed purpose of slave-catching-, either in this city 
or elsewhere. They did not volunteer for that purpose, and 
it is an assumption of power for which there is no authority. 
No military officer has any leg-al or moral rig-ht to g-ive such 
commands or issue such proclamations. 

I know of two soldiers in this city, who, when placed 
on g-uard, gave notice to the officer in command that they 
would not comply with such an order if issued; that they 
would not only go to the guard-house and be court-martialed, 
but would submit to any punishment before they would do a 
thing so infamous. I honor these truly brave men, as will 
every one who reads this. They ought to be in command 
instead of being in the ranks. I regret to say, however, that 
quite a number of fugitives have been captured and returned 
by the troops in and about Washington. So long has the 
North been accustomed to do the "dirty work" of the slave 
barons that even now, when these men are in rebellion against 
the government, some of the northern volunteers become slave- 
catchers at the bidding of these traitors with whom the 
government is at war. The sardonic impudence, which en- 
ables these traitors to come into the military camps of the 
nation, and order the soldiers of the Republic to aid them in 
capturing and returning their fugitives to slavery, would be 
truly refreshing were it not for the doughfaceism it still 
betrays, and the disgrace and humiliation it must bring upon 
us at home and abroad. A case of this kind occurred here 
the other day. A slave escaped from Virginia, a State at 
war with the government of the United States. This slave 
IS called property in Virginia and in all the States in rebellion 

(165) 



- —166 — 

against the g-overnment. If they are property, then instead 
of it being the duty of the government (it never can be made 
the duty of the soldier) to catch and return these slaves, it 
is their duty, and the duty of every soldier, not only to pre- 
vent their claimants from capturing them, but it is their 
duty to hold them just as they would any property, that can 
be used by the rebels to destroy the lives and property of 
citizens and the government. The rebels are using these 
black men to build fortifications and to do a thousand things 
for which we use only white men. They are made as useful 
by the rebels as if they were soldiers. Why should we not 
accept their services rather than turn them back to the 
enemy, and at the end of the war liberate all the men with 
their wives and children who not only refused to fight or aid 
in any way in resisting the government, but absolutely ran 
into our camps and demanded to work for the maintenance of 
the government ? 

But I am digressing from the relation of a fact into an 
argument as to our duty. 

That is so clear, I will not add another word. The 
claimant of this slave followed him into this city and found 
him. The slave, strange to say, attempted to get away from 
his master and ran to the quarters of a Pennsylvania regi- 
ment, where he was brought up standing by the bayonets of 
the soldiers, who detained him until his pretended master 
came up. The poor slave could hardly believe what he saw, 
and in a supplicating tone said, "Why, gentlemen, you are 
not going to let this man take me off in this way, are you ? " 
This brave (?) band of so-called national defenders did not 
heed his appeal, but in violation of every principle of honor, 
to say nothing of duty and the demands of humanity, they 
detained him until the man claiming him brought a carriage 
and secured him and took him back. This is a fact which I 
know, alas, to be too true, and I blush for my country to say 
that it is not the first one. In God's name are we to be 
forever thus humiliated and disgraced ? I trust the united 
voice of the nation will demand that no such infamous act 
shall be repeated by any portion of the army, and that every 
soldier who shall hereafter be guilty of such an act, shall be 



-167 — 

drummed out of the service disgraced, and thus be declared 
too infamous to associate with the soldiers of the republic. 

If any one or two of these very soldiers had gone into 
Virginia on that very day, and this slave master had had 
them in his power, the chances are ten to one that he would 
have had them hanged by his order, as a number of northern 
men have been by slave masters. 

If they did not share this fate, they would hardly have 
escaped being tied up by his order to a whipping-post and 
this very slave ordered to give them from ten to one hundred 
lashes, just as the whim or caprice of the slave baron might 
deem necessary to convert them from their supposed hatred 
of slavery (because living in the North) to a love for it. For 
it is well known that those who profess to love slavery and 
do the bidding of slave masters are never hanged, burned, 
whipped, robbed or driven out of the South. Those who do 
not love slavery above kindred, country and God, as the 
rebels love it, are subject to tortures, imprisonments, ban- 
ishments, or death. No man in the South need have any fears 
if he will but fall down, and worship loud enough, the god of 
slavery. 

If he interpose any conditions or doubts, however, he is 
worse than an unbeliever, and" an unbelief in the divinity of 
slavery is a greater crime in the eyes of the slave baron than 
any offense, not even excepting murder, and they are 
generally dealt with by the Christian process of tarring 
and feathers, whipping and hanging. If this infamous 
oligarchy thus treat men and women born on their own 
soil, and guilty of no crime, what ought northern men to ex- 
pect who do not yield to every demand of these men, how- 
ever monstrous ? No northern man, however, need have any 
trouble with the slave barons of the South, if he will only 
consent to obey implicitly the demands they make upon him. 
And if this nation would but submit to all the demands of 
the southern oligarchy to-day, there need be no war, no loss 
of life, and no expenditure of hundreds of millions. 

Have you heard of any cowardly doughface lately de- 
manding that twent^'-iive millions of free men shall submit 
to the mild and easy yoke of the three hundred thousand 
slave barons of the South? Do you know of any who will 



— 168 — 

say now what the so-called "Peace Commissioners" said, 
when they were in "Washing-ton in secret session, bowing like 
slaves before the eyes of their masters and declaring as some 
of them did, "that they did not want any backbone, that 
they intended to do whatever their southern brothers asked, 
for they knew that they would only ask for that which was 
honorable and right." 

By the by, what has become of all northern compro- 
misers, who were members of the "Peace Congress?" I 
hear nothing of them or from them. I certainly hope that 
their extraordinary mental labors while here attempting to 
secure a peace by an unconditional surrender, has not pro- 
duced a softening of the brain. Above all, I sincerely trust 
that the war has not frightened them any worse than they 
appeared to be frightened when closeted in secret, misrepre- 
senting and betraying the people by voting with such 
traitors as John Tyler & Co. If they are as badly frightened 
now as they claimed to be then, they have probably left the 
country. If they have, I shall regret it very much, for we 
shall need (now that it is so scarce) some such doughy ma- 
terial for future use. 

These frightened old fossils voted with the southern 
rebels, first to exclude the public from their deliberations and 
then to exclude all reporters for the press, hoping thereby to 
prevent the public from ever getting at the record of their 
base and cowardly acts, only so far as they should consent 
to make it up for their inspection. 

Fortunately for the people and the future of the country, 
there were earnest and competent men, members of that body, 
who kept a faithful record of every word and act, and I am 
happy to state that it will soon be given to the public. When 
it is published I have no doubt but what we shall hear from 
some of the "Peace Commissioners" in efforts to explain 
certain votes and speeches. While I cannot help regretting 
that bad and corrupt men have forced our country to a civil 
war, I cannot but rejoice to know that the logic of events 
has stripped bare the logic of northern doughfaced poli- 
ticians and proved how false were all their declarations. 

More than a year ago, I declared in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, that in case of Mr. Lincoln's election the South 



— 169 — 

"would be m rebellion ag"ainst the g"overnment and enemies 
of the Constitution and the Union." I said further, that 
which is now generally admitted by all parties, although 
these words were then thought to be too strong, ' ' that we 
never should have peace until the present noisy advocates 
of slavery here and elsewhere were reduced to insignificance 
and silence, and everywhere beneath the national ensign 
the rights of humanity were fully recognized and respected, 
and our lawmakers and general and state governments 
should again be directed by the genius of universal eman- 
cipation." I insisted last winter in all my letters to you and 
others, that, compromise or no compromise, there would be 
war, and that we might as vv^ell prepare for it first as last. 

If I have not understood this question from the first, 
then I never have and never can understand any political 
question, and I think my votes on all the cunningly devised 
propositions of traitors and doughfaces, which, in the last 
Congress were attempted to be forced upon the people, justify 
me in saying this much of myself. 

One of the most important of all political questions ever 
presented for the consideration of any administration in this 
country, is about to be forced upon this administration, and 
I rejoice that it must come now. I have long contemplated 
it, and find but one course of action practicable or honorable. 
I allude to the disposition of the slaves, who, as our army 
penetrates into the South, will desert from the camps and 
plantations of the rebels and join our ranks. If we send 
them back we strengthen the enemy» If we permit them to 
come, we destroy the enemy. They are using these slaves 
to erect fortifications to destroy our troops, using them to 
raise grain, etc., to support their armies. 

Shall the government use its military power to weaken 
itself and strengthen its enemies ? Would any nation en- 
gaged in a war with another nation thus act ? These ques- 
tions answer themselves. Then again, if the slaves are once 
fairly convinced that the North, whom they have been taught 
by their masters to believe were their friends, are as hostile 
to them as their masters, we will have done just what these 
southern traitors ask. If we take the only practical course. 



— 170 — 

the backbone of this rebellion is already broken, and the in- 
tegrity of the nation will be maintained. 

On our part this is not a war for the conquest or subju- 
gation of the South, or the enslavement of any people, but a 
war for their liberation rather — a war to relieve them of the 
military despotism and mob law with which they are cursed, 
a war for the preservation of the Union and our national ex- 
istence as a free government. 

A cause so holy and so just cannot fail to enlist the sym- 
pathies of the people of all nations, and if the Administra- 
tion but discharges its duty, as I have faith it will, that 
cause will triumph. Depend upon it, however, that the peo- 
ple of the United States will never consent to fight against 
the slave barons and at the same time fight to make slavery 
perpetual. You cannot make a free people fight for and 
against a great crime at the same time. You cannot put 
down this rebellion and at the same time build up and main- 
tain that which caused the rebellion. Every man concedes 
that if there had been no slaver)^ in the nation, there 
would have been no such rebellion as we have to-day . Every 
man knows that if slavery is strengthened by any act of the 
government, either by fighting to maintain it, or by com- 
promising to give it a new lease of life, just such rebellions 
as we now have, are as certain to follow if the slave barons 
are defeated by the people in another election. Who, then, 
is willing and anxious to strengthen slavery to-day, by fight- 
ing for it or giving to it new constitutional guarantees? 
Where are the compromisers? If there are any, let us hear 
from them, that we may know who and where they are • — 
that the people may write down opposite their names that 
which shall properly characterize their weakness and 

DEPRAVITY. 

I leave for Fortress Monroe to-morrow. If I can, I will 
write you from there. J. M. A. 



ADDRKSS 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY. 



Delivered at College Hall in the City of Toledo, 
Tuesday Evening, Nov. 26, 1861. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Hon. J. M, Ashley — 

Dear Sir: The utidersig-ned request jou to address the 
citizens of Toledo on the subject of the present rebellion, at 
College Hall, at such time as suits your convenience, prior to 
your leaving" for Washington. 

Toledo, Nov. 19, 1861. 
R. C. Lemmon, Charles Kent, 

A. W. Gleason, M. R. Waite, 
Valentine Braun, W. Baker, 

James Myers, 

Jonathan Wynn, 



D. A. Pease, 
Alex. Reed, 



Horace Thatcher, Lyman Parcher, 
Wm. Kraus, a. H. Hathaway, 



W. W. Jones, 
F. A. Jones, 
Peleg T. Clark, 
Dan. Segur, 
and many others. 



Toledo, Nov. 21, 1861. 
Gentlemen: In reply to your favor of the 19th inst., 
inviting me to address the people of this city on the subject 
of the present rebellion, I will name Tuesday evening next, 
Nov. 26. Respectfully, 

J. M. Ashley. 
To R. C. Lemmon, Esq., and others. 




Letter from Hon. N. W, Cuney, Galveston, Texas. 
After giving Mr. Ashley's patriotic letter on page ;i6S, and his 
speech on page 173 a careful perusal, I am free to say that in so 
much as his utterances on the subject of the manumission of the 
slaves of the South antedated Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, they had 
much to do with influencing- the administration with a trend of 
opinion, favorable to the consummation of what I consider the most 
g-lorious and human act of any administration in our history. 

Mr. Ashley's presentation of facts is cogent- and accurate, his 
deductions logical, and the spirit of truth and fairness apparent from start to finish, 
as all f airminded men will attest. 

In my opinion there can be no question, with the intelligent reader, of how Mr. 
Ashley stood over thirty years ago on the subject of slavery, and no one acquainted 
with his public record of later years, will deny him his proper place in history and in 
the hearts of the colored people. N. W. Cuney 

(171) 



N. W. CUNEY. 



172- 



The demand for this speech has been so great that the 
first edition was soon exhausted, and a larger one is now 
issued to supply the continued demand. The following" are 
a few of the many commendatory notices taken from leading- 
Union papers: 

"We have read this thrilling speech with unmingled 
satisfaction. Of all the expositions of the causes of the 
rebellion, and the consequences which are to follow in its 
train, this is by far the richest in fact, the clearest in state- 
ment, and the ablest and most demonstrative in argument, of 
anything that the rebellion has called forth. Nothing but 
its length precludes its publication in the Telegraph, and 
want of time prevents a longer notice this week. 

" We thank the author for the copy of the address sent 
to us, and we thank him again and again, in the name of all 
loyal and right-minded men, for the true and manly senti- 
ments to which he has given a voice in fitting words, that 
will make it one of the few speeches which will outlive their 
authors." — Meigs Co. (Ohio) Tei^egraph. 

"The speech delivered by Hon. J. M. Ashley, at Col- 
lege Hall, Toledo, by request of a number of his con- 
stituents, on the Causes of the Rebellion, is one of the best 
expositions that has yet appeared. It is convincing in argu- 
ment, mild in tone, replete with historical facts, and should 
be read by every man, especially by such as entertain any 
doubt as to the origin and purposes of the Rebellion." — Ohio 
State Journae. 

"An able and valuable speech." — N. Y. Evening Post. 

Letter from Bishop J. A. Handy, D. D., Washing-ton, D. C. 
No one could have listened to tLe address of the Hon. J. M. 
Ashley, of Toledo, Ohio, Nov., 1861, without being- thrilled. No oue 
to-day can rise up from its reading- -without the conviction that it 
exposes the causes which made the Rebellion possible. The duty of 
the nation now is to see to it, that this great country shall be pre- 
served free, and that a government of the whole people, for the 
whole people, by the whole people, shall not perish from the earth. 
The dreadful results of dismemberment were averted, and the two 
J. A. HANDY. doctrines presented to the people before the war, are settled. The 
doctrine of the South was, that the Government of the United States is a federal 
union of sovereign States. The doctrine of the] rest of the country was that it is a 
national republic. While the war did not change the facts as to the doctrine held, it 
settled the issue. Incidentally slavery went out, and the slave walked out of chattel- 
hood up into manhood, a citizen— a member of the body politic— while all the States 
entwined around one common centre, the national Constitution. J. A. Handv. 




THE REBELLION — ITS CAUSES AND CON- 
SEQUENCES. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : In response to an in- 
vitation from a number of my fellow-citizens, I appear before 
you to-nig"ht to present as briefly as I can my views of the 
rebellion, its causes and consequences. And here let me say 
that the observations which I propose to make, will be in the 
main, but a recitation of historial facts. Facts are stubborn 
thing's, and I prefer to use them in examining* the questicfn 
upon which I am to speak to-night, rather than to resort to 
declamation. I do it as a duty, and to demonstrate to you 
bej^ond all dispute that the cause for which we were fig^hting- 
is the cause of Justice, Union, and Constitutional Liberty. If 
I could not do this I would ask no man to join the army, for I 
could not ask a man to enter the army to fight for injustice 
and oppression. 

THIS REBELLION WITHOUT PARALLEL. 

I need hardly say to you that we are in the midst of a 
rebellion unlike any which has preceded it, in the history of 
the world. 

There have been many rebellions and revolutions since 
the establishment of civilized governments, but this is the 
first attempted revolution having for its avowed object the 
extension and perpetuity of human slavery. All rebellions 
which have preceded this have been professedly to secure the 
rights and liberties of the people. Therefore of all rebellions 
this is the most causeless and criminal. 

The seeds of this rebellion were first sown as long ago 
as the year 1620, when a Dutch ship entered the mouth of 
James River in the then infant colony of Virginia, and com- 
mitted the infamous crime of selling twenty black men as 
slaves. The British Government fostered and protected by 
law the seed then sown, and added yearly to it, more than an 
hundredfold, by fresh importations up to the date of the 
establishment of our independence. 

(173) 



174 — 



JEFFERSON AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

The leading- men of the Revolution saw, and, like true men, 
acknowleged the inhumanity, the injustice and the crime of 
slavery. Jefferson said, when speaking- of it, that "he 
trembled for his country when he thought of the negro and 
remembered that God was just." In the original draft of 
the Declaration of Independence he charg-ed as one of the 
grievances of which we justly complained at the hands of the 
mother country, that of forcing- slavery upon us. These are 
his precise words : 

"He has wag-ed a cruel war ag-ainst human nature itself, 
violating- the most sacred rights of life and liberty in the 
persons of a distant people, who never offended him, capti- 
vating- and carrying- them into slavery in another hemisphere, 
or to incur a miserable death in transportation thither. This 
piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the 
warfare of the Christian King- of Great Britain, determined 
to keep open a market where men shall be bought and sold. 
•He has prostituted his negative by suppressing every legis- 
lative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable com- 
merce, and that this assemblage of horrors might want no 
fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very 
people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty 
of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on 
whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes 
committed against the liberties of one people with crimes 
which he urges them to commit against the lives of another." 

That this truthful count in the indictment against Great 
Britain was stricken out of the Declaration of Independence 
on demand of the slave barons, I regret, as all liberty-loving 
men have regretted, but that it was stricken out, and at such 
a time and under the circumstances, tells you better than I 
can tell you, of the danger which imperils the life of a nation 
that fosters and protects a privileged class. 

FEELING AGAINST SLAVERY SINCE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 
INDEPENDENCE. 

Since the establishment of our independence, the exis- 
tence and growing strength of this slaveholding privileged 
class, has been a source of anxious solicitude on the part of 



— 175 — 

leading" patriots and statesmen, not only in the North, but 
also in the South. To the careful study and investig-ation 
of the question which has caused the present rebellion I have 
given all the early years of my life, and with most men who 
have impartially examined it, I have been satisfied for many 
years, that the day was speedily approaching-, when the 
question was to be settled by the American people whether 
slavery, to use the language of President Lincoln — " should 
be put where the. people would rest in the belief that it was 
in the course of ultimate extinction," or the United States 
become a slaveholding empire. 

That I have been disappointed in some of my conclusions 
touching the final disposition of this question and the 
ultimate action of the slave barons themselves, I am frank to 
admit. Certainly ten or twelve years ago I did not suppose 
it possible that the old Democratic party, to which I then 
belonged, and which I venerated for its great leaders and 
liberal principles, could ever be divided and defeated as it 
has been, by the slave barons, and I felt confident until after 
I took my seat in Congress for the first time, that whatever 
disposition might be made of this question, it would at last 
find a peaceful solution. Before the close of the 36th Con- 
gress, I changed my mind and came reluctantly to the con- 
clusion, that .nothing but the direct interposition of Provi- 
dence, could save us as a nation and a people from a bloody 
civil and perhaps servile war. In the first speech which I 
made in that Congress, speaking of the slave baron conspir- 
ators, I said that — 

"Their professed devotion to law and order — the decis- 
ions of courts and their fidelity to the Constitution and the 
Union simply meant that they would obey such laws as they 
desired enacted, submit to such decisions of courts as they 
could dictate, and be faithful to the Constitution and the 
Union so long only as they were entrusted by the people with 
the administration of the government and the interpretation 
of the Constitution." And I added : 

"When this ceases, as I trust and believe it will cease, on 
the 4th of March, 1861, their fidelity to law will cease, their love 
of the Union will cease, and their new-born veneration for 
that ' AUGUST TRIBUNAL ' of which we have heard so much 
of late — the Supreme Court — will also cease; and they will 



176- 



be, if their threats are put into execution, in open rebellion 
ag-ainst the Government, and enemies of the Constitution and 
the Union." 



COMPROMISES UNAVAILING. 

No careful observer of events, could have failed to fore- 
see for the past few years, that both in the North and in the 
South, public opinion has been graduallj^ but surely under- 
going- such a chang-e on the subject of slavery, that sooner or 
later the question would have to be met and fairly settled. 
All compromises in the shape of the most humiliating- con- 
cessions made b}" the North to the South had failed to satisfy 
the imperious demands of the slave barons, and I need hardly 
add that the present rebellion and attempted revolution was 
inevitable without absolute submission on the part of the 
North. The chang-e of public opinion throug-hout the two 
sections is in itself a revolution. On the part of the loyal 
citizens it has been a revolution of peace and g-ood-will by the 
mode pointed out and prescribed by the Constitution, a 
revolution by means of the ballot-box. On the part of the 
conspirators and rebels it has been from the first a revolution 
of force and fraud, and now ends in an appeal to arms. 

LIBERTY AND SLAVERY THE ONLY QUESTIONS INVOLVED. 

It is, then, as I shall show you, a contest that has for 
its motive power on one side liberty, and on the other slavery. 
It presents a question to which there can be but two sides, 
and he who is not for liberty and the Union is against them. 
Politicians and even cabinet ministers may declare as they 
have done and are doing-, that there is no connection between 
slavery and this rebellion, but I tell you, and hope before I 
take my seat to prove to those of you who do not now 
acknowledg-e it, that slavery is the g-erm from which this 
rebellion sprang- — the motive power and mainspring- of 
its action — and that, but for slavery, there had been no such 
rebellion in the United States to-day. Most of you understand 
this, I trust, already — the leading- men of Europe understand 
it, and I believe the time is close at hand, when compromising- 



— 177 — 

editors and politicians will be unable long-er to deceive any 
respectable number of the people. 

SI^AVKRY TH:e CAUSE OF THK REBELWON AS PROVED BY 
SOUTHERN MEN. 

For more than thirty years the slave barons of the South 
have been plotting- treason and preparing- for this rebellion. 
In the convention which passed the ordinance of secession in 
South Carolina, this was openly proclaimed, and the boast 
repeatedly made that for thirty years they had been looking- 
to the consummation of the treason they were then enacting-. 
I will read you two or three extracts from the speeches made 
by their leading- men in that convention. 

Mr. Rhett said : " It is nothing- produced by Mr. Lincoln's 
election or the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It is 
a matter which has been g-athering- head for thirty years." 

Mr. Parker said: "It is no spasmodic effort that hJes 
come suddenly upon us, but it has been gradually culminating 
for a long series of years." 

Mr. English said: "Most of us have had this subject 
under consideration for the past thirty years." 

Mr. Keitt said: "I have been engaged in this movement 
ever since I entered political life." 

This testimony ought at least to be good as against the 
conspirators and their Northern allies. 

If their own statements are to be credited, from the day 
General Jackson crushed the South Carolina nullification 
rebellion of 1831-3 to the outbreak of the rebellion of 1861, 
the slave barons of the rebel States have been conspiring to 
destroy this government. To the truth of history I appeal 
to make good their own declarations and to sustain this 
charge. 

Calhoun's defection in 1836. 

During the second administration of General Jackson, 
the hostility of Calhoun to that great and good man, became 
open and undisguised, and when Mr. Van Buren was nomi- 
12 



^178— 

nated for the Presidency in 1836, by the friends of General 
Jackson, Mr. Calhoun and his friends, although claiming to 
be Democrats, opposed his election, and South Carolina under 
his lead, voted for Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, then, and 
for many years thereafter, a "Whig U. S. Senator from that 
State. This defection of Calhoun and his friends alarmed 
all the Northern Presidential aspirants and the whole race of 
•small politicians who always hang upon their skirts for the 
sake of place and power. This alarm must have become 
almost a panic, for even Mr. Van Buren, who was triumph- 
antly elected in 1836 and desired a re-election, became quite 
as anxious as Buchanan and that class of Northern Presi- 
dential candidates to conciliate Mr. Calhoun and the small 
but powerful class of whom he was the chosen representative. 

GENERAL JACKSON'S PROPHECY. 

General Jackson said when he put down the nullifiers of 
1832, that their next effort to break up the Union would be 
on the slavery question. That prophetic prediction is now 
a historical fact. The Northern Presidential aspirants of 
both the old parties, and all the leading politicians, under- 
stood this matter well, and under the pretext of saving the 
Union, they united in declaring that such concessions as the 
South asked on the slavery question ought to be granted. 

MR. VANBUREN'S concession, AND ITS EFFECT. 

These concessions were agreed upon by politicians on 
the plea of saving the Union, so when Mr. Van Buren was 
inaugurated, he seized that occasion to give in his adhesion 
to the demands of the slave baron conspirators, by declaring 
that if Congress passed an}'- law designed to interfere with 
slavery in the District of Columbia, he would veto it. This 
shameless pledge, unasked as it was by any Democratic con- 
vention, or, indeed, by any body of men, publicly, startled 
the thinking men of the nation, who saw in it a bold and 
unscrupulous bid for the united vote of the slave interest. 
This movement was not without its desired effect, for Mr. 
Calhoun returned nominally to the Democratic party, sup- 



— 179 — 

ported Mr. VanBuren's administration, and South Carolina 
voted for him in 1840, when he was defeated by General 
Harrison. 

THK ATHERTON " GAG " ON THE RIGHT OP PETITION. 

The Atherton "gfagf," as it was justly termed, a rule 
known as the 21st rule, was adopted by the House of Repre- 
sentatives on demand of the slave barons. This rule refused 
to allow any petitions from the people on the subject of slavery 
to be received by their own representatives, and completed 
the humiliation of the North during- the administration of 
Mr. Van Buren, and opened wide the g-ate which led to the 
fatal road down which we have been traveling as a nation 
and people at a frig-htful pace ever since. 

EFFECT OF THE DEATH OF GENERAI, HARRISON. 

The death of General Harrison in one short month after 
his inaug"uration, and the accession of John Tyler, then "Vice- 
President, to the Presidency, afforded an opportunity which 
was eagerly embraced by the slave baron nullifiers, to take 
possession of the Government and administer it for their ex- 
clusive benefit. That John Tyler proved a traitor to the 
party which elected him, is recorded in history. That he 
is a traitor to his country to-day, wili, be recorded in his- 
tory. This weak and unscrupulous man became the willing 
tool of the slave baron conspirators, and permitted them to 
dictate and control the policy of his administration. 

CAI.HOUN AS secretary OF STATE. 

On the death of Abel P. Upshur, of Virginia, who suc- 
ceeded to the office of Secretary of State, after the resignation 
of Mr. Webster, John C. Calhoun, the admitted chief and ablest 
of the slave baron conspirators, was called by Mr. Tyler from 
his seat in the Senate of the United States to take Mr. 
Upshur's place. You who are familiar with political history, 
will remember that when Mr. Calhoun went into that office, 
he astonished and shocked the moral sense of the civilized 
world, by declaring that he onlv accepted the position in 



180 



order that he mlg-ht with g-reater certainty consummate the 
g-rand scheme of the slave barons, to retain control of the 
country by the successive annexations of Texas, Cuba, 
Mexico, and Central America, or to divide it in case of 
failure. He did not hesitate to make public and defend his 
scheme of annexing" Texas to secure it to slavery. In his 
dispatches to our Ministers in England and France he de- 
clared this to be the policy of our g-overnment. That Mr. 
Calhoun was a bold and able man all admit, and he went at 
his work with a directness of purpose that places in unen- 
viable contrast the dodg-ing- and cowardly conduct of North- 
ern statesmen, who, while professing- to represent the inter- 
ests of free labor and the rights of man, did not hesitate to 
sacrifice them without scruple at the bidding of the slave 
barons. 

WARNING OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

John Quincy Adams warned the nation oefore Mr. 
Calhoun became Secretary of State of this scheme. But the 
North was so absorbed in the pursuit of wealth and new en- 
terprises that it did not heed the warning of that able, pure 
and far-sighted statesman, and by the votes of Northern men 
claiming to represent free labor Texas was annexed with 
slavery, and this part of Mr. Calhoun's scheme to strengthen 
and perpetuate the rule of a privileged class and increase 
their influence in the Government was consummated on the 
night of the 3d of March which closed the memorable ad- 
ministration of John Tyler. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1844 AND DKFEAT OP HENRY CLAY. 

By the management of Mr. Calhoun the question of the 
annexation of Texas was made to enter largely into the cam- 
paign of 1844. It decided the fate of candidates in the 
Baltimore convention of that year and defeated Henry Clay 
because he yielded to the importunities of slave barons and 
wrote the never-to-be-forgotten Alabama letter. Although 
I had not then attained my majority, I attended the Demo- 
cratic convention which met in Baltimore in 1844 and wit- 
nessed the political movements by which the slave barons 



— 181 — 

triumphed in that convention. I did not then fully compre- 
hend how or why Mr. van Buren was there defeated, when 
every Democratic State convention in the United State, with 
but three or four exceptions (and those the smallest States), 
had instructed its delegates to vote for the re-nomination of 
Van Buren and Johnson, the old ticket defeated by Harrison 
and Tyler in 1840. I never fully comprehended it until after 
the Presidential election of 1848; then, after making- the mat- 
ter a subject of diligent search and inquiry, I became satis- 
fied that the slave barons were the power behind the throne, 
and that none but a spurious Democracy could sustain and 
defend the rightfulness of human slavery. 

In 1850 the country had forced upon it the so-called com- 
promises of that year. The action o f Southern conventions 
and the position assumed by Southern statesmen and parties 
in many of the States in 1851, and the action of the Demo- 
cratic and Whig national conventions of 1852, confirmed me 
in my convictions, and I declined longer to act with the party 
of my choice. 

INTERESTING AND IMPORTANT HISTORICAL INCIDENT. 

There is a historical incident of importance connected 
with the canvass of the year 1844 to which I wish to call 
your special attention as throwing some light on the present 
movement. In order that we may understand the matter 
clearly, I invite you to go back with me and look into the 
Democratic national convention of 1844, and also the Tyler 
convention, composed of government officials and slave-baron 
conspirators. Both of these conventions assembled on the 
same day in the city of Baltimore. The Democratic National 
Convention was regularly called by the Democratic National 
Committee. The Tyler Convention was called by the direc- 
tion of Mr. Calhoun. Although I then thought, as everybody 
seemed to think, that the Tyler movement was a great farce 
and a good joke, the sequel will prove that it was one of the 
most important and wily moves of the conspirators. This 
convention nominated John Tyler for President, and adjourned 
without making any nomination for Vice-President. In the 
regular Democratic convention there was a bitter contest 



-182 — 

over the adoption of the rules. Hon. R. M. Sanders, of North 
Carolina, moved the adoption of the rule known as the two- 
thirds rule. The honest Van Buren men opposed and the 
conspirators and their allies supported the motion and finally 
carried it. The convention was thus placed completely in 
the power of the conspirators, althoug-h they were largely in 
the minority. 

You know the history of that convention. Mr. Van 
Buren had written a letter ag-ainst the annexation of Texas, 
and for that he was defeated in a convention where nearly 
four-fifths of the delegates were instructed to vote for him. 
Thus you see how formidable these conspirators were so long 
ago as 1844. After three or four days balloting, in which 
these men, with consummate tact, so divided their votes be- 
tween Cass, Buchanan, Woodbury and others, as to prevent a 
nomination and to blind the country to their true purposes, 
the convention at last yielded, utterly worn out, and the con- 
spirators succeeded by threats and promises in fairly driving 
the convention, a majority of which had voted to nominate 
Mr. Van Buren, into the nomination of James K. Polk, and 
forcing it to adopt such a platform as they dictated. 

This accomplished, the master spirit who moved the 
main springs of both conventions, now set himself to work to 
secure an endorsement from Polk of their pro-slavery schemes. 
For this purpose a distinguished Southerner was dispatched 
on a secret mission to Knoxville, Tennessee, to see Mr. Polk 
and present him the alternative of adopting their policy or of 
being defeated. He was told that unless he gave in his 
adhesion to their schemes, an electoral ticket with John 
Tyler at its head would be formed and voted for in all the 
States, securing by the patronage of the government and the 
influence of the conspirators, sufficient strength in each of 
the close or pivotal States to hold the balance of power, 
and by thus dividing the Democratic vote, Mr. Clay would 
obtain a plurality and be elected. Mr. Polk saw this 
clearly and, as subsequent events proved, yielded to their 
demands. On the return of the messenger to whom I have 
referred, Mr. Tyler withdrew from the canvass, and the 
whole power and patronage of his administration were openly 



— 183— 

used to secure the election of Mr. Polk, who, with all this 
combination to favor him, was barely elected, and would 
have been defeated without it. 

I have thus shown you that the farce, as it was called, of 
nominating- John Tyler was not so g-reat a farce after all, 
but that it was one of the shrewdest and most successful 
moves ever made by a desperate minority on the political 
chessboard in this country. 

One of the first acts of Mr. Polk after his accession to 
power, was to comply with the programme of the nullifiers, 
who demanded a new org-an in place of the Globe, which 
was edited by Francis P. B.lair, the bosom friend of Jackson 
and the enemy of the nullifiers. For this purpose the 
Madisonian, the late Tyler org-an, was purchased, its name 
cnanged to the Union, and Mr. Ritchie, the editor of the 
Richmond Enquirer, then, as now, the org-an of the con- 
spirators, was selected as its editor-in-chief. Mr. Calhoun, 
and all the nullifying" conspirators, who were driven from 
the Democratic party by General Jackson, were now received 
into full fellowship, and from that day to the meeting- of the 
Charleston- Baltimore Convention, these men dictated and 
controlled its policy. 

CAUSES OF ALARM THAT WERE OVERLOOKED BY THE NORTH. 

The cession to Great Britain of one-half of the territorj- 
of Oreg-on, tog-ether with the beautiful island of Vancouvei:, 
in violation of the Democratic platform of 1844, and the 
public pledg-e of Mr. Polk who, with the entire party, decliied 
our title to the whole " clear and indisputable," the war with 
Mexico, the acquisition of California, and the offer by thns 
g-overnment to Spain, of two hundred millions of dollars for 
the island of Cuba, were acts which, separately, oug"ht to 
have alarmed the country as to the ultimate desig-ns of the 
slave barons, but when taken in connection with all the acts 
of the Polk administration, oug-ht to have aroused every 
patriot in the nation, as one man, to resent and prevent its 
treasonable schemes. 



— 184- 

EFPEC'frOFTHE ELECTION OF GENERAL TAYLOR UPON THE SOUTH. 
HIS DEATH AND THE CONSEQUENCES. 

The election of General Taylor in 1848 was a severe and 
unexpected blow to the hopes of the nullifiers. That stern 
old patriot could neither be intimidated nor persuaded to 
favor their schemes, and the celebrated batch of compromises 
known as the " Omnibus Bill," was defeated in the House of 
Representatives by his influence. Unfortunately for the 
country in this important crisis of our history, General 
Taylor died and Mr. Fillmore became the acting- President. 
Under his administration the compromise measures which 
had just been defeated under General Taylor, were revived 
and passed in separate bills. I need not now refer to the 
means by which the passag-e of these odious and obnoxious 
acts was obtained, nor to the motives which prompted 
Northern men to g-ive them their support — suf6.ce it to say, 
these acts bore their legitimate fruit, and justly destroyed 
both the men and the parties that supported and indorsed 
them. 

FIRST SCHEME TO ORGANIZE A SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. 

On the 7th of May, 1849, at the city of Jackson, in the 
State of Mississippi, a meeting* of slave baron conspirators 
was held upon the sug-g-estion of Mr. Calhoun. The scheme 
to form a Southern Confederacy there took form and shape 
and the secession party was formally org-anized. The pro- 
g"ramme then laid down, the conspirators of 1860-61 have 
attempted to carry out, 

CALHOUN'S DEATH. JEFF. DAVIS HIS SUCCESSOR AS CHIEF 
CONSPIRATOR. 

Mr. Calhoun died about the close of the long- session of 
the ever-memorable compromise Cong-ress. Immediately 
after his death, Jefferson Davis and his confederates in the 
Senate and House of Representatives met tog-ether in the 
city of Washington and agreed upon a constitution for a 
Southern Confederacy. That constitution was, in the main, 
just such a constitution as the traitors have adopted at 



— 185 — 

Montg-omery, Alabama, except that the constitution agreed 
upon in 1850 specially provided for the acquisition of Cuba, 
Mexico and Central America, while the Montg-omery consti- 
tution is silent on these points. At the meeting- to which I 
have alluded, Mr. Davis was selected by the conspirators as 
the first President of the new Confederacy. 

GEN. QUITMAN AND OTHERS OPENLY ADVOCATE SECESSION. 

I intend in a moment or two to quote larg-ely from General 
Quitman, of Miss.,* because, after the death of Mr. Calhoun, 
he was regarded by me as the ablest and boldest man in the 
South who was eng-aged in the then contemplated rebellion. 
He was a politician of the strictest Southern rights school, a 
defender of every filibustering conspiracy, a professed believer 
in the doctrine of the divine right of the stronger to enslave 
the weaker, and an open advocate of a Southern confederacy. 
He was the intimate friend of Calhoun and the most active 
and untiring of the secession leaders. It is now over two 
years since his death, but the present and future policy of 
the conspirators, so far as can be judged, is exactly what he 
urged. Let me now read to you some important extracts 
from a few of the many letters written and received by him, 
more than ten years ago. These letters speak for themselves 
and develop fully the policy of the conspirators. General 
Quitman, on the 28th of September, 1850, only eighteen days 
after the passage of the compromises of that year, thus writes 
to ex-Governor McRae, of Mississippi, then a member of 
Congress: 

"I have not acted without first looking at the ground 
before me, and I take the privilege of communicating to you 
in confidence, thus early, a hasty programme of our future 
movements. First, then, I believe there is no effective 
remedy for the evils before us but secession. . . 

"My idea is, that the legislature should call a convention 
of delegates, elected by the people, fully empowered to take 
into consideration our federal relations, and to change or 
annul them, to adopt one organic law to suit such new rela- 



••= The quotations here made from the writing-s of leading' Southern cousp'^atcs 
may be found in the "Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, Majo.. General 
U. S. A, and Governor of the State of Mississippi, by J. F. H. Claiborne. Harper & 
Brothers, publishers. 2 vols., 1860." Books which ought to be in the hands of every 
Northern apologist for this pro-slavery rebellion. 



— 186 — 

tions as they might establish, to provide for making- com- 
pacts with other States, and that in the meanwhile an effective 
MILITARY SYSTEM be established, and patrol duties most 
rigidly enforced." 

"In the meantime, every patriot should leave no point 
untouched, where his influence can be exerted. Cheer on 

THE FAITHFUL, STRENGTHEN THE WEAK, DISARM THE SUBMIS- 

sioNisTs; send a fiery cross through the land; and every 
gallant son of Mississippi to the rescue." 

You will see by this that while the North was being 
humiliated and demoralized by shamelessly surrendering to 
the demands of the slave barons, they were secretly plotting 
the overthrow of the nation. 

On the 29th of September of that year (only nineteen 
days after the passage of the compromise measures which we 
were told were to be the last, and that the South would never 
again exact any additional guaranties for slavery). General 
Quitman, in writing to Governor Seabrook, of South Carolina, 
said: 

" Without having fully digested a programme of measures 
which I shall recommend to the Legislature, it may be of 
service to you to know that I propose to call a regular con- 
vention, to take into consideration our federal relations, 

with FULL POWERS TO ANNUL THE FEDERAL COMPACT, ESTAB- 
LISH RELATIONS WITH OTHER STATES, AND ADAPT OUR ORGANIC 
LAW TO SUCH NEW RELATIONS." 

" Having no hope of an effectual remed}^ for existing 
and prospective evils but in separation from the Northern 
States, my view of State action will look to ' secession.' " 

On the I7th of December, 1850, Governor Seabrook, in 
answering General Quitman, said: 

"I candidly confess to you that I am advocating the 
immediate action of the legislature in order to suggest the 
first Monday in December next for the time, and Montgomery, 
Alabama, as the place of meeting of Congress. I am 
rejoiced that the House resolved to suggest to our Southern 
States the propriety of meeting in Congress at Montgomery 
on the 2d of January, 1852. . . . 

"For arming the State $350,000 has been put at the 
disposal of the Governor. . 

" I shall be happy to know that the time and place of the 
proposed Congress will be agreeable to Mississippi. 

" If our movement be seconded bvher, I have good reason 



— 187 — 

for the belief that Alabama, Florida and Arkansas will soon 
follow the PATRIOTIC example." 

General Quitman thus writes to Colonel John S. Preston 
of South Carolina, on the 29th of March, 1850: 

"The plan proposed by the address of the Central Com- 
mittee, which I have forwarded to 3^ou, is, that the Committee 
DEMAND REDRESS for past ag-g-ressions and guaranties 
against future assaults upon our rights; and in the meantime 
to provide for meeting our sympathizing sister States in a 
Southern Congress. The proposed redress is: 

' ' 1st. A repeal of the law suppressing the slave trade 
in the District of Columbia. 

"2nd. Opening of the Territories to the admission of 
slaves. 

"3d. The permission of slavery in California, south of 
36 deg. 30 min." 

"The guaranties to be amendments to the Constitution 
explicitly protecting slavery from hostile interference by 
Congress or States, and to restore equal taxation, direct 
and indirect." 

" In case the address and guaranties be refused, the State 
to make formal propositions to her Southern sisters for a 
separate confederacy, and to unite with any number of them 
sufficient to secure nationai, independence." 

"I concur with you in the opinion that the political 
equality of the slaveholding States is incompatible with 
the present confederation as construed and acted on by the 
MAJORITY, and that the present Union and slavery cannot 
CO- exist." 

Governor Means, of South Carolina, thus writes to Gen- 
eral Quitman on the 15th of May, 1851: 

"There is now not the slightest doubt that the next 
legislature will call the convention together at a period dur- 
ing the ensuing year, and when that convention meets the 
State will secede. . . . We are anxious for co-operation, and 
also desire that some other State should take the lead, 
but from recent developments we are satisfied that South 
Carolina is the only State in which sufficient unanimity 
exists to commence the movement. We will therefore lead 
off, even if we are to stand alone." 

Colonel Gregg, of South Carolina, in writing to General 
Quitman on the 15th of May, 1851, thus encourages the 



— 188 — 

secession party, wlio were straining- every nerve to elect 
Jefferson Davis Governor of Mississippi on the direct issue of 
secession: 

"Let them (the secessionists) contend manfully for 
success, and if beaten in the election they will form a minority 
so powerful in moral influence, that when South Carolina 
secedes, the first drop of bi.ood that is shkd will cause an 
irresistible popular impulse in their favor, and the submis- 
siONiSTS will be crushed. Let the example be set in Missis- 
sippi, and it will be followed in Alabama and Georg-ia. 
Imparting- and receiving courage from each other's efforts, 
the Southern rights men will be ready to carry everything 
before them, in all the three States, the moment the first 

BLOW IS STRUCK IN SoUTH CAROLINA." 

General Quitman thus writes to Governor Means, of 
South Carolina, on the 25th of May, 1851: 

"Experience has fully demonstrated that united action 
cannot be had; the frontier slave States are even now indi- 
cating a disposition to cling to the Union at all hazard of 
their slave institution. They will not in my opinion unite 
in an effective remedy, unless forced to choose between a 
Northern and Southern confederacy." 

On the 9th of June, 1851, Governor Seabrook, of South 
Carolina, thus writes to General Quitman: 

"The course of the convention will depend somewhat on 
our sister Southern States. If they affirm the right of seces- 
sion and the non-existence of a power to prevent a State 
from exercising it. . . . Should South Carolina strike a 
decisive blow, may she confidently rely on the undivided sup- 
port of her present friends in your State?" 

And again on the 15th of July of the same year, Gover- 
nor Seabrook thus discourses to General Quitman: 

" If this scheme fail, what then? Let the State proclaim 
to the world that at a time to be designated, say six months, 
she will withdraw from the Union. If Mississippi be not pre- 
pared to follow her example, a simple annunciation on her 
part that any hostile attempt, direct or indirect, by Congress, 
to prevent her (South Carolina) from exercising- the rights of 
an independent nation, or to keep her in the Confederacy, 
would be considered by your Commonwealth a subversion of 
the fundamental principles on which the States confederated, 
and consequently a full release from her obligations in the 
Union." 



189 



CONSPIRACY TO SECEDE OP LONG STANDING. 

You see by these quotations that this conspiracy is of 
no recent date. Ten or fifteen years ago, General Quitman 
conceived and confided to others the scheme which the rebels 
of 1861 have attempted to enact, and I lay these facts before 
you for your serious reflection, and to prove to you that the 
destruction of our Constitution and Union has been seriously 
contemplated for many years, and that, too, without refer- 
ence to any of the pretended grievances now complained of 
by the South. 

DISUNION CANDIDATES FIRST NOMINATED IN SOUTHERN STATES. 

In 1851 open and avowed disunion candidates were 
nominated and run for governors in the States of Georgia 
and Mississippi, and one or two other Southern States. In 
Mississippi, Jefferson Davis, who was then a Democratic 
United States Senator from that State, resigned his seat in 
the Senate, went home to Mississippi, and became the dis- 
union candidate for governor, on an open and avowed dis- 
union platform. Senator Foote, also a Democratic Senator 
from that State, resigned his seat and became the Union 
candidate. Davis was defeated by a small vote, as were also 
the open disunion candidates in all the States, except in the 
State of South Carolina, which elects her governor and 
State officers by the legislature. 

DEATH OP THE WHIG PARTY. 

In 1852 General Pierce was elected President over 
General Scott. In this contest the Whig party breathed its 
last, because false to the principles of freedom. The success 
of the so-called Democratic party with Pierce as its chief 
was almost as fatal. It lingered along in a sickly condition 
until 1860, when it, too, gave up the ghost. 

JEFF. DAVIS SPCRETARY OF WAR, AND HIS ACTS. 

Jefferson Davis was selected by President Pierce for his 
Secretary of War, although it was well known to Mr. Pierce, 
and to the whole country, that Mr. Davis was an avowed 



— 190 — 

secessionist, and had just been defeated for Governor of 
Mississippi on that issue. Davis, by his position, was 
enabled to advance the schemes of the conspirators by 
appointments, by favoritism in the army, and by his counsels 
in the Cabinet. And in 1856, had Fremont been elected, 
Davis would have attempted to seize the g"overnment. 

BUCHANAN AS PRESIDENT, AND HIS CABINET. 

Unfortunately for the country, Buchanan was elected 
President, and a majority of the Cabinet he called around 
him were either avowed secessionists, or willing" instruments 
in the hands of the conspirators. By this act of Mr. 
Buchanan, the old Democratic party was completely demor- 
alized by the domination of the disunion element in its coun- 
sels, so that at the Charleston-Baltimore Convention, it was 
disrupted and the org-anization divided and defeated. 

DEATH STRUGGI,E OF THE SI.AVE BARONS TO CONTROL, 
LEGISLATION. 

The long- and bitter contest for the Speakership of the 
House of Representatives, at the opening- of the 36th Con- 
g-ress, was the death struggle of the slave barons to keep 
possession of the legislative department of the government 
during the residue of Mr. Buchanan's term of office, so that 
in case of defeat in the Presidential election of 1860, which 
the conspirators had then resolved upon — unless they could 
dictate the candidate at Charleston, they might by having 
control of the House committees, as they had of the com- 
mittees in the Senate, be fully prepared for every movement 
necessary to consummate their treason. 

PLANS OF THE CONSPIRATORS LAST WINTER. 

It is now conceded by those whom it is admitted ought 
to know, that the conspirators discussed and agreed upon a 
plan for a provisional government last winter at Washington; 
that their plan was to seize the Capitol and public archives, 
and prevent b}^ force the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln at the 
seat of government; and by thus getting possession of the 



— 191 — 

National Capitol and inaug-urating- Mr. Davis at Washing- 
ton, they hoped to secure an early recog-nition of their 
• g-overnment by some of the resident foreig-n ministers, many 
of whom they believed then and still believe to be favorable 
to their schemes. 

SYMPATHY BETWEEN THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS AND SOUTHERN 
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. 

And here let me mention a fact worthy of note. The 
foreig-n resident ministers at Washing-ton are mostly from 
the aristocratic and wealthy European families, and sympa- 
thize and associate with that class everywhere. 

A majority of the Southern Senators and Representatives, 
while professing- to be democrats, are if possible more aristo- 
cratic than these foreig-n ministers. The result is, that their 
social intercourse at Washing-ton is almost exclusively with 
Southern members, who do not hesitate openly to denounce 
all Northern men as cowards, poltroons and money-getters, 
who can be bought as cheap as their own slaves. 

CHARACTER AND POSITION OF NORTHERN MEMBERS. 

The great body of Northern Senators and Representa- 
tives are poor, and owing to the short time they remain or 
expect to remain in Congress, they do not, with few excep- 
tions, care to form the acquaintance of foreign ministers. 
So you see that our government at home has not only been 
controlled, and our foreign policy cunningly shaped by 
Southern men, but the minds of the resident foreign minis- 
ters have been prepared for this rebellion, and also for its suc- 
cess; and this is the secret of the ill-disguised sympathy of so 
many resident foreign ministers with the rebels. 

This infamous conspiracy was defeated by unlooked-for 
dissensions in its own ranks, and by no sagacity, foresight 
or precaution on the part of Mr. Buchanan or the represen- 
tatives of the people. 

MAJOR ANDERSON AND THE REBELS — HIS REMOVAL TO 
FORT SUMTER. 

Fortunately for the cause of the Union, but unfortunately 
for the conspirators, dissensions arose in the cabinet on the 



- -192 — 

question of reinforcing- Fort Sumter. Major Anderson, 
a loyal and patriotic citizen of Kentucky, with about seventy 
men, forced this unexpected question upon the. President and ■ 
Cabinet. You all remember that Major Anderson was in 
command at Fort Moultrie; that his position was such that 
a land attack by the rebels could not be prevented. He had 
no orders from his g-overnment to remove to Fort Sumter, 
and could obtain no reinforcements, althoug"h he asked for 
them. So he assumed the responsibility in the face of a 
g"overnment which he must have reg^arded as false to its 
highest duties, and whose commands he also knew he must 
obey. 

The conspirators in Charleston had approached Major 
Anderson in every conceivable manner; they had feasted and 
flattered him; but he could not be seduced from his allegfiance. 
He was watched by them, and could make no movement. 
The public arms and property of the government in the city 
of Charleston they would not permit him to touch, and he 
saw that if any movement was made to save the honor of the 
g"overnment, it would have to be done by strategy and on his 
own responsibility — a responsibility which you and I most 
heartily thank him for having assumed. [Applause.] He 
was invited to dine with a number of the chief conspirators 
on Christmas last, and accepted. After dinner, toasts and 
speeches were the order of the evening. All the power of the 
conspirators was exhausted to induce the Major to become a 
traitor, but to no purpose. Report has it that he feigned 
intoxication so well, that he was conveyed in a carriage to his 
headquarters at Fort Moultrie. The rebel conspirators 
returned to concoct new schemes to seduce this loyal and 
patriotic soldier, and while they were thus conspiring, in the 
darkness of night he quietly gave his orders, and a few small 
boats are made ready; all the provisions and munitions they 
can carry are put on board, and after spiking the cannon in 
Fort Moultrie, he and his little band of brave spirits step on 
board their boats, and with muffled oars pull off to Fort 
Sumter, and when the conspirators awoke in the morning, 
the National flag was seen floating from that supposed impreg- 
nable fortress. [Loud applause.] When the rebels saw this, 



— 193 — 

they were amazed, and swore more terribly than "our army 
in Flanders." The telegraph soon brought this glorious 
news to Washington, and I need not tell you how it made 
glad the hearts of all true Union men. Party was thought 
of no longer. The rebels telegraphed to Mr. Buchanan and 
demanded an order for Major Anderson's immediate return 
from Fort Sumter to Fort Moultrie, and to our shame be it 
told that many Northern men united with the rebels in 
seconding their demands. Among this class of men none 
was more offensively conspicuous than Senator Bright, of 
Indiana. 

SECRETARY CASS RESIGNS. 

On the simple proposition of reinforcing Major Anderson 
and preserving the national honor, a division arose in the 
cabinet — a majority voting with the President not to rein- 
force. You will agree with me, I know, when I say that 
every man who so voted was either a rebel conspirator or a 
tool in their hands. When this disgraceful decision was 
made, General Cass, to his honor be it said, refused longer to 
remain in the cabinet of a President who proved himself to 
be either a traitor or a coward, and perhaps both. [Applause.] 

COBB, FI.OYD AND THOMPSON FOLLOW — DIX, HOLT, STANTON 
AND KING APPOINTED. 

This unexpected resignation of Secretary Cass was soon 
followed by the resignation of the traitor Cobb, and subse- 
quently by the resignation of Floyd and Thompson, owing 
to the disclosures made by a confidential clerk of the theft 
of the $800,000 of Indian bonds. Happily for the country, 
Dix and Holt, Stanton and King, loyal and true Democrats, 
were called to fill these unexpected vacancies in the cabinet, 
and thus the scheme to seize Washington City and inaugu- 
rate their rebel government there was defeated, because the 
patriot Holt was Secretary of War, and a majority of the 
cabinet were now true to the Union. [Applause.] 
13 



— 194 — 

ABANDONMENT OF THE PLAN OP LAST WINTER. 

Being" thus unexpectedly foiled, the conspirators aban- 
doned their desig-n of seizing- Washington, and preventing 
the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and resorted to every ex- 
pedient to deceive the country, and throw the people off their 
guard as to their real intentions. For this purpose, the 
most noisy and unscrupulous did not hesitate to declare in 
the House and at the public hotels, that Mr. Lincoln was the 
constitutionally elected President, and should be inaugurated 
if it had to be done over their lifeless bodies. 

JOHN C. BRECKENRIDGE THEN AND NOW. 

Mr. Breckenridge also united with them in declaring 
publicly that he would not only count the electoral votes as 
prescribed by law (you will remember that the secession 
papers North and South declared that they would not be 
counted), and proclaim Mr. Lincoln the constitutionally 
elected President, but that he intended to take his seat in the 
Senate of the United States, to which he had just been 
elected by the loyal State of Kentucky, and swear to support 
the Constitution and the Constitutional Government, and I 
saw him with uplifted hand take that oath. 

This deception blinded many of the Northern represen- 
tatives and people, who unitedly praised Mr. Breckenridge 
for his patriotism and loyalty. How worthily it was be- 
stowed, let his subsequent conduct in the Senate and else- 
where, and his present position speak. 

INAUGURATION OP MR. LINCOLN. 

At last the 4th of March came, and Mr. Lincoln was 
peacefully inaugurated on the eastern portico of the national 
Capitol, in the presence of thousands of loyal citizens and 
friends , 

THE CONSPIRATORS AND THE NEW PRESIDENT. 

The conspirators now resorted to new stratagems to 
deceive and mislead the government. They approached 
Mr. Lincoln as Union men, professing devotion to the Consti- 
tution and great anxiety for the success of his administra- 



— 195 — 

tion. But they all, with one voice, united in declaring- that 
any attempt on the part of the gfovernment to send soldiers 
to any part of the South to protect the national property, 
would precipitate them all into a revolution. The President 
was told that he must not attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter 
— that he must not send troops to protect the Norfolk Navy 
Yard with its millions of property, that troops must not be 
sent to Harper's Ferry to g-uard the National Armor}^ and if 
he did, the whole State of Virginia would be driven into a 
revolution. For six long* and weary weeks these men de- 
ceived and prevented the government from doing- as I think 
it would have done, but for them. I need not tell jou. how I 
protested against the government listening to the counsels of 
these men — much less heeding them. You know the result — 
the Norfolk Navy Yard was lost, Harper's Ferry was lost, and 
the very Capitol of the nation was imperiled. 

THE CABINET AND PRESIDENT — PATRIOTISM OP THE LATTER. 

The cabinet under the advice of General Scott, voted to 
withdraw Major Anderson from Fort Sumter and thus sur- 
render it to the rebels. 

On the part of some of our best military men, this 
course was urged because the Buchanan administration had 
permitted the fort to be so environed with armed batteries, 
that it was said reinforcements could not be put into the 
fort with less than 40,000 men. In this trying emergency, 
everything now depended on the decision of the President, 
and nobly did he meet the responsibility. You and I honor 
him for his decision. He said : " Never by an order from 

MY HAND, WHILE I AM PRESIDENT, SHALL THE STARS AND 

Stripes be struck to a rebel foe !" [Long applause.] This 
impulsive and patriotic declaration of the President, in my 
judgment saved the life of the nation, and whatever blunders 
he may have committed, or shall hereafter commit, this brave 
and noble act ought to excuse, and with me, shall excuse a 
multitude of mistakes. 

"star of THE WEST" FIRED UPON BY THE REBELS. 

"When asked what he proposed to do, he answered, that 

**THE world WILL EXPECT US TO PROVISION OUR SOLDIERS, 



— 196 — 

WHILE IN THE) FAITHFUL DISCHARGE OF THEIR DUTY, AND I 
INTEND TO NOTIFY THE AUTHORITIES AT CHARLESTON THAT 
THE TROOPS IN FORT SuMTER WILL BE FULLY PROVISIONED BY 
SENDING AN UNARMED VESSEL TO THE FORT." The vessel waS 

despatched, and when within sig"ht of the fort she was fired 
upon from the rebel batteries, and compelled to put to sea. 

SUMTER COMPELLED TO SURRENDER. 

Thus day after day all hope of a peaceable solution of 
our difficulties was dispelled, and when all hope of reinfor- 
cing" the fort seemed to be given up and Major Anderson 
only had one or two days' rations of salt pork for his hand- 
ful of men, at the expiration of which time the rebels knew 
he must surrender, they opened their fire upon that patriotic 
band, and compelled them to surrender. This act sealed the 
doom of the traitors. The North, heretofore divided, was 
now united, and every patriotic Union man gave up party 
for country. 

CALL FOR TROOPS BY THE PRESIDENT AND THE RESPONSE. 

I need not detail to you the stirring events which fol- 
lowed — the call of the President for 75,000 men, and the 
alacrity with which hundreds of thousands of all parties 
patriotically volunteered to defend the Constitution and the 
Union. Until then, I did not know how full the nation was 
of the old leaven of 1776. Until then. I had no idea of the 
immense moral power of the bayonet. 

EXTRA SESSION OF CONGRESS. 

The President called Congress together on the 4th of 
July, and asked for 400,000 men and $400,000,000 of money 
to put down the rebellion, and we gave him 500,000 men and 
$500,000,000. How the citizens in the loyal States have 
responded to the call of Congress and the President, you 
know. Never, in all the history of the world, from the days 
of Alexander and Csesar to Napoleon, has any nation of 
eighteen millions of people been able to put an army of 
500,000 men into the field, armed and equipped, as we have 
done, in five months. This fact, of itself, is a guarantee of 
our success if the government but does its duty. 



— 197- 



CONDUCT OF RKBEIy MSMBBRS. 



The conduct of Breckenridg-e, Brig-lit and others, in the 
Senate, of Burnet and others in the House after the new 
administration came into power, is proof positive that these 
men were either in sympathy or complicity with the traitors 
who were conspiring- to destroy the government, at the very 
moment they, with uplifted hand, were swearing" to support 
and defend it. 

REBEL TESTIMONY THAT SLAVERY IS THE CAUSE OE THE 
REBELLION. 

I might quote by the hour from speeches of the leading- 
rebels since the outbreak of this rebellion, to sustain the 
position which I have so elaborately fortified by fact after 
fact; but I am sure you will ag-ree with me, that it is unneces- 
sary. I will only detain you long- enough on this point to 
make two or three short quotations which I think it important 
to submit in this connection. The first is from Alexander H. 
Stephens, the Vice-President of the rebel g-overnment. Mr. 
Stephens I suppose you all know to be one of the fairest and 
most conservative men in the entire South, and a man of the 
first order of talents. In speaking- of the principles on which 
the Southern Confederacy was formed this summer, he said: 

" That its foundations were laid — that its corner-stone 
rested on the great truth that slavery, subordination to the 
superior race — was the negro's natural condition; that the 
confederacy was founded on these principles, and that this 
stone, which was rejected by the first builders, had, in their 
new edifice, become the chief stone of the corner," 

The foundation stone upon which Washington and the 
patriots of the Revolution built, is rejected by the leaders in 
this rebellion, and if Mr. Stephens speaks truly, the founda- 
tion upon which the conspirators build, is slavery. Yet in 
the face of such statements, and all the facts I have enumer- 
ated, politicians and newspaper editors attempt to deceive and 
mislead the people by declaring that slavery has nothing 
whatever to do with this rebellion. 

Senator Brown, of Mississippi, a colleague of Jefferson 
Davis, openly declared that he not only demanded a Southern 



— 198 — 

Confederacy, but that he wanted " Cuba, Mexico, and Central 
America for the planting- and spread of slavery, so that like 
the relig-ion of our divine Master, it may spread to the 
uttermost ends of the earth." 

Mr. Clay, of Alabama, declared in a speech at Mont- 
g"omery, last winter, that, 

"A cordon of free States must never be permitted to 
surround the God-given institution of slavery — the beautiful 
tree must not be thus girdled that it may wither and die." 

And the leading organ of the conspirators for May of 
this year, BeBow's Review, not only declares "tliat the 
foundation of the new Confederacy had for its corner-stone, 
slavery," but defends and justifies the enslavement everywhere 
of the entire laboring population, declaring "that Th:^ 

SOCIAL, CONDITION OF ENGI.AND AND THE WORLD WOULD BE 
INFINITELY BETTER IF THE LABORING CLASSES WERE DOMESTIC 
SLAVES." 

NORTHERN POLITICIANS TO BLAME FOR CONCEALING FACTS 
FROM THE PEOPLE. 

Are these startling- facts new to you? They are old 
familiar acquaintances of mine, and I have repeated most of 
them over and over again, many times in this Congressional 
District. Do you ask in wonder, how such unholy combina- 
tions could be made against the very life of the Nation, 
without exciting- the open hostility of every patriot and true 
Union man in the Republic ? I answer that it has been and 
is mainly, the fault of Northern politicians who have either 
been ignorantof the existence of such treasonable movements, 
or with a guilty knowledge have kept them from the people. 

It is not, however, improbable that the great body of 
Northern representatives have been entirely ignorant for the 
past twenty years of these acts, although often acting and 
voting with the conspirators and in aid of their ulterior 
designs. This could not well be otherwise as long- as the 
two sections should adhere to their present policy, or rather 
their want of policy in selecting- and continuing their repre- 
sentatives at Washington. The South selects her best men, 



-199 — 

men of talents and ability, who are true to her interest, and 
retains them as long* as they are faithful. They thus become 
acquainted with the entire working's of the g"overnment. 
The North sends with rare exceptions an entire new set of 
men every two or four years. Many of these men are not 
only without ability, but what is still more lamentable, men 
who, under the pretext of party necessity, sacrifice the interest 
of their own constituents. If rejected by the people at the 
close of one term for their treachery, a pro-slavery adminis- 
tration has always provided them with some compensation 
for their services, and thus from year to year, the North has 
been used and disgraced, simply because of the inefficiency 
OR WANT OF FIDELITY of its representatives. 

The South understands this matter better. She selects 
men who are not only true, but able; and retains them in 
position until they become familiar with the working-s of 
every department of the g"overnment, and in time they not 
only become representative men, but absolutely control, as 
they have done for years, the entire leg"islation of the country, 
althoug-h their section is larg-ely in the minority. 

A CHANGE MUST BE MADE. 

The North will have to chang-e this custom and adopt 
such a one as prudence and common-sense dictates. States- 
men are not extemporized out of the ablest men in a day. 
Our greatest generals worked their way up gradually from 
the ranks, and our safest and best railroad men commenced at 
the foot of the ladder. All American statesmen, worthy of 
the name, have come up from the ranks of the people, and 
the South has produced the largest number, simply because 
she has pursued the policy of retaining her representatives 
until by education and experience, they became statesmen. 
Do you suppose that a Northern conspiracy against the 
government could have been as successfully inaugurated and 
put into execution as this Southern conspiracy has been — 
that we could have held Northern conventions, elected North- 
ern State governors on the direct issue of dissolving the 
Union or compelling the South to adopt such a National 
Constitution as we might dictate, without the entire South 



— 200 — 

"being" familiar with every movement, and unitedly prepared 
to resist it? In addition to all this, do you believe the South 
would ever have been g'uilty of voting- for Northern men who 
were her open and undisguised enemies? that they would 
ever have placed them, as we have done, in the most honorable 
and responsible positions in the g-overnment? I ask if you 
believe it possible for the North with all her boasted knowl- 
edge, to have done all the South has done for the past twenty 
years, without being- understood in every movement, not only 
by every Southern representative, but by the entire Southern 
population, which would have instructed their representa- 
tives to meet and defeat the issue upon the threshold, not 
with compromise, but with open, manly, persistent opposition, 
and exposure of the traitors eng-aged in it? 

But this secession movement has been openly advocated 
for years, and its champions have been placed by Northern 
votes and Northern Presidents not only in the cabinets but 
in the most honorable and responsible positions of the gov- 
ernment. If able and true men pointed out the danger, as 
did John Quincy Adams, their voices would be drowned by 
the din of commerce and the cry of demagogues, who either 
for the sake of party or office, or the promise of office, would 
in proportion to their ignorance, denounce with increased 
vehemence, all such statements as unqualifiedly false and 
only made to injure their party. For the sake of party and 
the hope of securing some petty office for two or four years, 
ignorant and corrupt men have usurped in the name of the 
people the management of political conventions, and the 
great interests of the country have been made subordinate to 
the ambitions of men whose whole lives gave assurances of 
their unfitness for responsible positions. 

Because of this state of things, the North, although 
superior in point of wealth, population and intelligence 
have been made the "hewers of wood and drawers of water" 
for the South. Do you ask when this state of things shall 
forever cease ? I answer that it will cease as this rebellion 
will cease, whenever a united people earnestly wills it, and 
not before. 



— 201 — 



THE NORTH INDICTED AT THE BAK OF PUBLIC OPINION. 

That the overprudent, the timid and the indifferent, with 
the trickster and demag-ogue, will join with cowardly 
Hunkerism in condemning- the manner in which I am treating- 
this subject I do not doubt, and I do not object. In my 
opinion, this is no time for honeyed phrases, and I have 
therefore called thing-s by their rig-ht names. This is a war 
about slavery and you and I know it. The South declare that 
our unconstitutional interference with slavery is the cause of 
this rebellion. For this we are indicted at the bar of public 
opinion and required to plead "g-uilty" or "not g-uilty." 
Instead of responding- promptly, and manfully, and truthfully, 
"not g-uilty," all Hunkerdom holds its breath for fear of 
offending- its Southern brethren, and demands that we shall 
plead to anything- else rather than tha.t with which we are 
charg-ed in the rebel indictment. Will any lawyer tell me 
how we are to defend ourselves? "What shall be our reply to 
this charg-e? We may plead all our sins of omission and. 
commission, but that will not do. Silence on the only distinct 
charg-e made in the indictment ag-ainst us is an admission of 
our g-uilt. It is all any rebel can ask. It is substantial^ say- 
ing- to the world that the South is rig-ht and the North is 
wrong-. Therefore for one I plead "not g-uilty," and "put 
myself upon the country." Suppose, instead of the charge 
of improper interference with slavery, the North were charg-ed 
in the rebel indictment with unconstitutionally interfering 
v/ith the rights of the South on the question of the tariff, or 
Pacific Railroad, or the question of representation, or any 
one of the many questions which have divided political parties 
in this country? Would prudent but timid friends be found 
then, as now, uniting with the political trickster and the 
demagogue in seconding the demand of Hunkerism that we 
should not only not plead to that with which we were charged, 
but that we should not even discuss or publicly allude to the 
matter at issue? How can a statesman who is guided by 
the principles of justice, or even by political expediency, 
demand of any rational people anything so irrational or 
idiotic as debate and answer to charges without any reference 
to the subject matter of the charges? 



202 



If this rebellion had resulted from a conspiracy on the 
part of the great body of railroad corporations, or banks, or 
manufacturing- interests, in the United States, because the 
General or State Governments had refused to comply with 
their demands, do you suppose there would have been any 
such hesitation on the part of the government as to their 
duty as there has been towards the present rebels? The old 
bank of the United States had a capital of only fifty millions 
of dollars, and yet General Jackson thought its continued 
existence dangerous to the liberties of the people, because he 
knew it subsidized the public press, controlled party conven- 
tions, and, with its gold, corrupted statesmen and divided the 
nation's chosen guardians and counselors. He thereupon 
crushed it, and the nation applauded him. The number of 
rebel slave barons in the United States does not exceed 250,000 
men, all told. Of this number not more than 200,000 are 
voters, and yet they claim that their capital in slaves is worth 
two thousand millions of dollars. If fifty millions of dollars 
in the hands of a bank were dangerous to the liberties of the 
people, how much more dangerous are two thousand millions 
of dollars in the hands of slave barons, wh» are enemies to 
the government? For the protection of this property, as 
they claim it to be, they have demanded special legislation 
and constitutional guarantees which the people would not 
grant, and because of the refusal, this small but powerful 
class have made this war upon the government. Suppose the 
great majorit}^ of the bankers of the United States (and the 
bank stockholders are a more numerous class than the 
rebel slave barons) were to combine and demand an amend- 
ment to the Constitution, granting them perpetual char- 
ters, with the right to suspend specie payment whenever, in 
their opinion, the interests of the banks demanded it, and 
suppose the people should refuse to give them such a dan- 
gerous grant of power, and, because of this refusal, they 
should unite in a conspiracy to destroy the government by 
making war upon it as the rebel slave barons are now doing, 
what would you, as practical men do, if they, instead of the 
slave barons, were the rebels? I know what you would 
demand, and it would be done — the leading conspirators 



— 203 — 

would be arrested and their property confiscated to pay the 
expenses of putting" down the rebellion, and thus make it im- 
possible for them to g-et up another such rebellion. I would 
do the same with the railroad conspirators, who have more 
wealth and more men interested with them than all the 
slave baron rebels. I would do the same with any combina- 
tion of men under the same circumstances. The banking-, 
railroad and manufacturing- interests of the United States 
each separatel}^ controls more wealth than all the conspirators 
now eng-aged in the rebellion, and their institutions are of 
more importance to commerce, to civilization and g-ood 
government, than all the slave barons, whether loya.1 or 
rebel; and yet, if any one or all of these interests were to 
combine against the g-overnment, what would be their fate? 
Would there be any division among- us on the question of 
conducting- the war ag-ainst them? Why, then, as practical 
men, should we hesitate as to the course to be pursued 
tov.''ards rebel slave barons? 

The truth is, prejudice has blinded us, as a nation, so 
that we will not see our duty, and this is the secret of our 
inefficiency and our reverses. How many men are there 
before me who would hesitate at confiscating- the entire wealth 
of all the corporations in the country — whether banks, rail- 
roads or manufactories — if they were combined and in rebel- 
lion against the government and they believed such action 
was necessary to save the nation's life? If you would do 
this, would you not also confiscate and deprive the present 
slave baron conspirators of every slave they possessed, if 
3'ou believed it necessary for the preservation of the Consti- 
tution and the Union? I have no doubt of it. 

THE ONLY QUESTION BETWEEN KADICAL AND CON- 
SERVATIVE MEN. 

The only question, then, is a difference of opinion as to 
the time when this necessity begins. When, in the judgment 
of each man individually, that time has come, we are unani- 
mous. At present some are convinced that the time is now — 
others think differently — all, I doubt not, honestly. Instead, 
therefore, of finding fault and denouncing each other for 



-204 — 

lionest differences ot opinion, would it not be better ror all tO" 
maintain their opinions without criminating- each other and 
without denouncing" the g-overnment, which is undoubtedly 
honestly endeavoring- to do its duty? We are so constituted 
that we must see differently. If twenty men were selected 
from this audience to-night and a proposition was submitted 
to them, which to each was entirely new, whether in philoso- 
phy or politics, you know that their opinions would not only 
differ widely, but that some would be much quicker than 
others in coming to their conclusions. If, then, Union men 
differ on the proper disposition of this slavery controversy, 
let us agree to disagree, but stand firmly by the government. 
Is not the man who forms an honest judg-ment and frankly 
expresses it, entitled to the confidence of all true men, rather 
than he who either forms no ["opinions at all, or if he does, 
fears to express them? In short, is not the; man who, ip 

HE BIvUNDERS, does SO ON THE SIDE OP HUMANITY AND JUSTICE, 
BETTER ENTITLED TO THE RESPECT AND CONPIDENCE OP MEN 
THAN THE MAN WHO IS HEARTLESSLY INDIPPERENT OR CRAPTILY' 
SILENT? 

RECAPITULATION OF PROOF. 

I have demonstrated, I trust, to your satisfaction, by 
facts which cannot be controverted, that slavery, and sla- 
very ALONE, is the cause of this rebellion. I have shown 
you that every compromise and humiliating- concession made 
by the North to the South but emboldened and made more 
insulting the demands of the conspirators. They demanded 
at the Charleston and Baltimore conventions the uncondi- 
tional surrender of the Douglas Democrats, and because this 
was refused, broke up both. Their representatives pro- 
claimed LAST WINTER IN BOTH HouSES OP COMGRESS, THAT IF 

THE Northern representatives were to sign and seal a 

BOND ON A BLANK SHEET OP PAPER, AND AUTHORIZE THE CON- 
SPIRATORS TO FILL UP THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OP OUR SUR- 
RENDER, THEY WOULD NOT ACCEPT IT. They publicly declared 
that if the people elected any other man for President than 
the one dictated by themselves, they would secede and break 
up the Union, thus refusing longer to adhere to the demo- 



— 205 — 

cratic principle that the majority shall g-overn. I have shown 
you by their own public declarations, that the election of 
Mr. Lincoln was not the cause, but only a pretext for this 
rebellion; that for thirty years the traitors have been foment- 
ing- treason, and have been awaiting- a favorable opportunity 
to inaug-urate it. I have shown that but for the fatal folly 
and wicked indifference of the North, this rebellion would 
never have come upon us. That we have fed and fostered 
the viper which is now at our throats, every candid, reflect- 
ing- Northern man must admit. When it was an infant, or 
even when it was but half-g-rown, the nation mig-ht easily have 
destroyed it, but now by our own fault and g-uilt it has g-rown 
until it has become formidable and defiant. For years wc 
nursed it most tenderly and g-ave it all the succor and food it 
demanded. Not, outrag-ed justice demands either that we 
shall destroy it, or be ourselves destroyed by it. There is a 
law of compensation, a law which is above all human enact- 
ments, irrepealable because Divine, which proclaims that 

" THE NATION OR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT RULE IN RIGHTEOUSNESS 

SHALL PERISH FROM THE EARTH," and I believe we are now 
passing" through the trying* ordeal which will either establish 
us a nation of freemen, ruling- in rig-hteousness, or destro}' us. 

STATE SOVEREIGNTY. 

You have heard a g-reat deal about ' ' State Sovereignty " 
and the "sacred soil of Virginia" and other States, and the 
" right of secession." I will not now detain you with a dis- 
cussion on the abstract right of secession. Last winter I 
examined this subject thoroughly in a speech which I made 
in the House, and I have nothing now to add to or take from 
what I then said. The claim set up by these conspirators, 
that a State is "sovereign" and owns the soil v/ithin its 
geographical limits, is an assumption as arrogant as it is 
ignorant. No State op the American Union is sovereign 
OR has any ownership of the soil, except that which the 
Constitution and laws op the United States give her. 
The National Constitution guarantees to each State a re- 
publican form of government, with a right to make its own 
municipal laws, subject only to that Constitution. 



— 206 — 

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme 
law of the land, anything- in the laws or constitutions of 
the States to the contrary, notwithstanding. The assumed 
"right of secession" is an absurd and visionary dream of a 
monomaniac. As well mig"ht a man say he would release 
himself from any contract he had made, because he had 
determined not to pay his honest debts. Such a doctrine 
will do only for pirates. As well might Lucas County, Ohio, 
set up that she; is a "sovereign" count}^, and therefore has 
the "right" to secede from both the National and State 
Governments, and establish herself as an independent nation. 
If this were true, our National Constitution would not be 
worth the paper on which it is written. 

ABSURD doctrine; OF MR. BUCHANAN. 

Absurd, however, as this doctrine is, it is not half so absurd 
as the course pursued by Buchanan, who, while permitting" 
our national fortifications to be environed by rebel batteries, 
formally announced in his last message to Congress that not 
only was there no "right of secession" under the Constitu- 
tion, BUT THAT AI.I. ATTEMPTS ON THE PART OP THE NaTIONAI, 

Government to restrain or prevent a State from seced- 
ing WERE ALSO UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE EFFECTS IF THIS QUESTION HAD 
BEEN SETTLED IN THE MISSOURI CONTROVERSY. 

Had the nation heeded the warning voices of her purest 
patriots and statesmen at the time of the Missouri controversy, 
that State would never have been admitted into the Union 
with slavery, and the so-called Missouri compromise would 
never have been made. The deadly viper \/ould then have 
received its death-blow, and the nation been delivered from 
the rule of the slave barons. Slavery would not then have 
been nationalized by Congressional protection. There would 
have been no cruel, bloody and costly war in Florida for the 
enslavement of negroes, half-breeds and Indians, who were 
free when we purchased the territory fiom Spain, and whose 
rights we guaranteed by the treaty of purchase and unblush- 



— 207 — 

ing-ly violated by that war. There- would have been no war 
made upon the weak and distressed republic of Mexico for the 
purpose of wresting- free territory from her, on which to plant 
human' slavery. There would have been no ceding- of one-half 
of Oregon to Great Britain to prevent the erection of free 
States out of that territory. The compromises of 1850, the 
Kansas-Nebraska acts of 1854, and the justly infamous 
Lecompton Constitution of 1857, would never have disgraced 
the records of our country. In short, the crimes and murders 
in Kansas which have been committed, never could have been 
committed — much less could this wicked rebellion have been 
born. 

A BOLD, EARNEST, VIGOROUS POLICY DEMANDED. 

Our duty as a nation, in connection with this rebellion, 
has seemed to me from the first so plain that I have been 
not a little amazed at the apparent hesitancy and want of 
policy on our part. You know I have claimed, and still claim, 
that we cannot march into the South with our armies and suc- 
cessfully strike down the conspirators with one hand while 

UPHOLDING THE CAUSE OF THE REBELLION WITH THE OTHER. 

From the first I have insisted on the adoption of a bold, earnest 
and vig-orous policy. I have insisted that all persons who 
are not unqualifiedly for the g-overnment, whether in or out 
of office, should be treated as its enemies — that every person 
who was even suspected of disloyalty, should be dismissed from 
the army and from every branch of the public service, and I 
have classed, and shall continue to class, every man whether 
at the North or South, who is for the government with 
an "if" or a "but," as a traitor. [Applause.] Thus 
far in this controversy we have acted with the tenderest 
solicitude for the welfare of rebel slave barons. We have 
sanctioned the taking- of his horse, his cattle, his money and 
his life, but seldom his man chattels. On this point we have 
been inconsistent and vacillating-, while the rebels have been 
consistent and defiant. I know it is said by those who have 
counseled the policy or rather want of policy which we have 
thus far pursued, that "the war will be the end op 
SLAVERY," and that so far from having- any objections, they 



— 208 — 

^would be g-lad to see it. This may be true, but 3'ou and I 
know that the overthrow of slavery will not only end the 
war, but, beyond all doubt, save the Union an-d preserve con- 
stitutional liberty, by making- us what we oug-ht to be, a 
liomog-eneous people. 

It is claimed by many that the people should not criticise 
the acts of the g-overment at such a time as the present. I 
dissent from this theory. If the people do not demand from 
the g-overnment what they want, pra}' how is the g-overnment 
to know the wishes and sentiments of the people which it 
professes to represent? I have supported and voted for 
every necessary measure asked by the Administration, and 
shall continue to do so as long- as these demands seem to me 
right. Of that I am to be the judg^e, and not another for 
me. As I never have been, so I never shall be, the blind fol- 
lower either of men or parties. [Applause.] In the present 
controversy I have made everything- subordinate to the one 
g-reat wish of my heart — the preservation of the Constitu- 
tion and the Union. Neither men nor party, the allurements 
of power, nor the hope of future preferment have swayed or 
shall sway me in the discharg-e of my duty. As I have done 
since I have had the honor to represent you, so I shall con- 
tinue to vote and act on all questions as thoug-h there were, 
as now there oug-ht to be, but one party in the country, and 
that the party for the Constitution and the Union. In such 
a contest as the present, men are nothing-; parties are but as 
dust in the balance; but the Lfe of the nation is above all 
price, and must be preserved. I have, as all have, the 
strong-est motives for standing- firmly by the President, for 
he is certainly an honest and earnest man, and these are 
noble and indispensable qualifications. Believing- the Presi- 
dent to be thus earnest and honest, I can, as you can, afford 
to overlook many of the blunders and mistakes which, of 
necessity, he must commit in his present embarrassing- posi- 
tion. But while I say this, I will not consent to remain 
silent and quietly permit any policy to be adopted which, in 
my judg-ment, would be fatal to the success of that cause 
which all true patriots have first at heart. The old adage 
lias it that " it will do no harm to watch even an honest 



209 



man," and all history proclaims that " eternal vigilance is 
the price of liberty." [Applause.] 

CONSEQUENCES OP THE REBELLION. 

The consequences of this rebellion are difficult of solution. 
No man can tell when or how it will end, and any theory 
relating- to it must be continually modified by constantly 
chang-ing- events. It requires no prophet, however, to foresee 
that unless we change our policy we shall have the whole 
outside world against us. We may have them for us by 
simply doing that which our own self-preservation demands. 
It has been our policy as a nation for many years to recognize 
DE FACTO rebel governments, if they gave evidence of their 
ability to maintain a government. We cannot, then, justly 
complain if foreign nations do the same with us. If England, 
France and Spain, recognize the confederate government by 
the 4th of March next, as the moneyed and commercial 
classes of those countries are now demanding, what will be 
the result? Of necessity, a violation of our blockade and 
probably a foreign war. That there is a hostile feeling 
towards us among the aristocratic classes of the countries 
named, all understand. In addition, the commercial and 
manufacturing interests of Great Britain and France are 
favorable to an early recognition of the rebel government 
in order that free trade treaties may be secured, and they may 
obtain the Southern cotton and sell in return their manu- 
factured fabrics. These two interests combined exercise a 
wonderful control in those governments. Indeed, commerce 
itself, which is a mighty power in the world, will soon de- 
maind that its interests shall no longer be obstructed by this 
war. Here is this demand of the aristocracy (who hate our 
government) and the manufacturing and commercial classes 
against the great mass of their people, who love liberty and 
Republican institutions, and believe we are fighting to 
maintain them. As soon, however, as the mass of the moral 
and religious people of England and France shall be made to 
believe that the North is fighting to maintain slavery as it 
IS, and the South are only fighting to secure additional 
14 



— 210 — 

constitutional guarantees for the protection of slavery, tliey 
will say it is a "distinction without a difference," and will 
unite with the privileg-ed classes in demanding- an early 
recognition of the rebel government. And whenever their 
people are thus united, the independence of the rebel States 
will be acknowledged by their governments. Thus far in 
this controversy we have done much to alienate all foreign 
sympathy, and unless we change our policy we shall, in my 
judgment, lose the support of all the liberty-loving people of 
Europe. If this be lost, we surely can expect no support 
from the aristocratic element. As a nation we are in a criti- 
cal condition, and it depends alone upon our own action 
whether we are to draw to us the support of the moral and 
Christian powers of the world, or permit them to become in- 
different or openly hostile. 

EFFECT OF A FOREIGN RECOGNITION OF THE REBELS UPON 
THE NORTH. 

As soon as the governments of England and France shall 
have recognized the rebel confederacy, a powerful anti-war 
and anti-tax party will spring up in the North in favor of 
peace and the recognition of the independence of the traitors. 
Thus, we shall be divided at home and at war with the great 
military powers abroad, unless we yield. We have those 
among us now who contend that we cannot put down this 
rebellion. How many shall we then have who will openly 
demand the separation of the States? They will say, "If 
you could not put down this rebellion single-handed, how 
can you expect to do it with England and France in the 
balance against you? " They tell us now that if we withdraw 
our armies from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, 
the secessionists will at once carry those States over to the 
rebel government, and I am not sure but they would. How 
certainly would it be the case if we were compelled to with- 
draw our armies to fight a foreign enem}-. Let us look the 
truth squarely in the face. We may have a united nation of 
thirty millions of free men and the whole moral power of the 
world to sustain us, if we but will it, or we may alienate 
this power and be broken into fragments, never again to be 
united. 



— 211 — 

\ 

UNION OF sentime;nt and effort necessary. 

With these facts before us, what is our dut}-? You know 
-what I think. Let us then, forg-etting- all past differences, 
unite earnestly in adopting- the only practical solution of this 
question — that of striking- the enemy in his most vulnerable 
point. [Applause.] In this grand battle let us cling- with 
unfaltering- faith and hope to the flag- of our fathers, and 
fight on and fight ever, without concealment of our purposes, 
and without again compromising with wrong, until we lift 
the whole Union, " one and indivisible," above the ruin which 
to-night environs it — and the nation, thus purified, invigo- 
rated, and strengthened by the stern ordeal of battle, shall 
again shine out as the beacon light of liberty to the oppressed 
of the world, with no spot to darken her fair escutcheon, but 
shining out as beautiful as the morning, giving light and 
hope and joy to the struggling millions of the earth. 
[Applause.] To fight for such a government an'd such 
principles I have asked men all over my district to volunteer 
in the liberating ar.my of the Republic. Who would not feel 
proud to belong to such an army? Who does not feel thank- 
ful that Providence has cast his lot where he may be an actor 
in such a contest? For — 

"We are living, we are dwelling, 
In a grand and awful time. 
In an age on ages telling, 
To be living is sublime. 
Will ye play, then, will ye dally, 
With your music and your wine? 
Up! It is Jehovah's rally ! 
God's own arm hath need of thine ! '* 

Fellow-citizens, I have spoken to you to-night freely and 
frankly. Much that I have said might have been omitted, 
and my own convictions and opinions, had I chosen, could 
have been entirely concealed. I have felt it be my duty, 
however, as I did last spring, when I apprised you in my 
letters of the formidable proportions of this rebellion, and 
the danger that beset the life of the nation, to call your 



212 

attention to the facts upon which. I then based my opinions. 
I leave these facts with you for 3'our judg-ment. When you 
have fully and impartially examined them, as I have, I will 
have no fear of your verdict. In a day or two more I 
go to Washington, and I confess to you that I never went to 
the discharge of a duty with more distrust in my own abili- 
ties nor with a more sincere desire for the aid and counsel of 
friends and the guidance of Him "who doeth all things 
•well." Earnestly desiring above all things the restoration 
of peace, the Union and the Constitution, I shall continue to 
urge a vigorous prosecution of the war, to resist all attempts 
at compromise or surrender to the enemy by patching up a 
peace, knowing full well, as I do, that no peace can be honor- 
able or enduring which is made over the prostrate form of 
Justice. [Applause.] Confident that the nation or people 
who do not rule in righteousness shall perish from the earth, 
I believe every citizen has a sacred duty to perform, in this 
trying hour of our country's peril, which is to aid by everj^ 
means in his power in restoring the government to the princi- 
ples and policy of its founders. I believe that the first and 
highest duty of government is to secure every loyal inhabi- 
tant in his person, his liberty, and his property, "protecting 
all and granting special favors to none." This is the sum 
and substance of my political faith. It is an exceedingly 
simple one, but is all the platform I ask, and I intend, with 
God's blessing, to be faithful to it in the midst of this rebel- 
lion, the dissolution of parties and the desertion of men, so 
that for my own honor and that of my children it shall never 
be truthfully said or written of me that I was an apostate to 
that faith, or that I abandoned the sacred cause of Liberty 
for the sake of place and power. [Long continued ap- 
plause.] 



SPBBCH 

OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, 
In ths House of Representatives, Aprii, 11, "1862. 



ON THE BILI. FOR THE REI.EASE OP CERTAIN PERSONS HEX,D 
TO SERVICE OR LABOR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



INITIATE EMANCIPATION." 



Mr. Ashley said:' 

Mr. Chairman: I intend to vote for this bill as a 
national duty, and not as the representative of a locality. I 
shall vote for it without apolog-y, and without disclaimer. I 
have no excuses to offer here, or elsewhere, for doing- an act 
which even-handed justice demands. From the first I have 
been earnest and persistent in pressing- this question of 
emancipation. It became my pleasing* duty, in obedience to 
the request of the District Committee, to meet and confer 
with the senator who had charge of this subject in the other 
branch of the national legislature, and I may say, I trust, 

Letter from Prof. J, P. Shorter, A. M., LL. D., Wilberforce, O. 
On page 329 will be found a copy of the bill for the Abolition of 
Slavery in the District of Columbia, as originally introduced by Mr. 
^_. Ashley, with a brief history of its amendment and final passage, so 
as to compesnate loyal slave-owners. This speech and his masterly 
effort on page 333 in favor of the Thirteenth Constitutional Amend- 
ment, prohibiting slavery in the United States forever, will be read 
with unflagging interest. As we look back, we are amazed whea 
reading Mr. Ashley's unanswerable arguments, his denunciations 
and prophecies. All can see that he had that clear vision, which is 
only given to him whose heart is in the right place, and who is born to be " a leader of 
hopes forlorn that must be led." And this is not strange nor miraculous, for, as the 
poet has beautifully expressed it, "When the heart goes before like a lamp and il- 
lumines the pathway, many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness." 

J. P. Shorter. 
(213) 




-214 — 

"without impropriety, that the Senate could not well have 
confided it to a truer and more earnest friend of the measure. 
After several meeting's and consultations with leading" 
members of both Houses, and citizens of the District, we 
ag-reed upon a bill, which was approved by each committee, 
and ordered to be reported in both Houses. This was the 
bill which I reported to the House on the 12th day of March 
last. I deem it due to myself, in this connection, to say that 
the bill then reported by me was not in all respects what I 
could desire; and I need hardly add that some of the Senate 
amendments are of a character to make it still more objec- 
tionable. But 1 am a practical man, and shall support this 
bill as the best we can get at this time. I have been shown 
a number of amendments which some of my friends on this 
side of the House desire to offer, and which I would prefer 
to the provisions which are proposed to be amended; but if 
offered I shall vote ag-ainst them, as their adoption would 
greatly delay, if not endanger the passage of the bill at this 
session, because their adoption would necessarily return the 
bill to the Senate for their concurrence. I trust, therefore, 
that all friends of. emancipation will decide to accept the 
Senate bill as it is, and .vote against all amendments, so that 
the practical end aimed at by the earnest men of this House, 
the immediate liberation of all slaves in this District, shall 
at once be accomplished. The object to be attained, and not 
its particular mode of attainment, is what we ought all to 
have most at heart. 

If I must tax the loyal people of the nation $1,000,000 
before the slaves at the national capital can be ransomed, I 
will do it. I would make a bridge of gold over which they 
might pass to freedom, on the anniversary of the fall of 
Sumter, if it could not be more justly accomplished. The 
people of the United States must be relieved from all respon- 
sibility for the existence or longer continuance of human 
slavery at the capital of the Republic. The only question 
which I conceive I am called upon as a representative to 
decide is, has Congress the power and is it our duty to pass 
such a bill as the one before us? 

Part of the sixteenth clause of the eighth section of the 
first article of the Constitution reads thus: 



— 215 — 

" Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive leg-is- 
lation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceed- 
ing- ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States 
and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of g-overn- 
ment of the United States." 

Mr. Chairman, I need not go into a labored argument to 
show that Congress has power to banish slavery from this 
district. It is not necessary to be a constitutional lawyer to 
comprehend the extent of the power here granted. The 
meaning is plain enough. The clause confers upon Congress 
all the legislative power that can be exercised by both 
National and State Governments combined. If Congress 
cannot abolish slavery in this District, no power on earth can. 

A few years ago, one of freedom's distinguished orators 
startled the country by declaring "that Congress had no 

MORE POWER TO MAKE A SI,AVE THAN TO MAKE A KING. " If, 

then, there is, as I claim, no constitutional power in Congress 
to reduce any man or race to slavery, it certainly will not be 
claimed that Congress has the power to legaljze such regula- 
tions as exist to-day, touching persons held as slaves in this 
district, by re-enacting" the slave laws of Maryland, and 
thus doing by indirection what no sane man claims authority 
to do directly. I know it is claimed by some that if Congress 
has power to abolish, it must necessarily have power to 
establish slavery. I will not insult the intelligence of this 
House by discussing such a proposition. If Congress could 
not constitutionally re-enact the slave laws of Maryland for 
this District, then slavery could not exist even for a single 
hour after the cession of the territory became complete. 
But whether slavery constitutionally exists in this district or 
not, that it does exist is a fact, and because it exists and has 
existed by the sufferance and sanction of the National 
Government, for which the erttire people of the United States 
are justly responsible, it is more than ever the imperative 
duty of this Congress to abolish at once and forever so 
unnatural and unjustifiable a wrong. And, sir, if it be 
necessary to employ g"old to do it, let gold be employed. 
Gold — which has corrupted statesmen, perverted justice, and 
enslaved men, can never be more righteously used than when 
it contributes to re-establish justice and ransom slaves. 



-216 — 

It is claimed by the opponents of emancipation that the 
proper and natural condition of all colored races is that of 
slavery to the white race; that the people of color, not only 
in this district, but throug-hout the country, are unfit for 
freedom; that they cannot take care of themselves, and must, 
of necessity, if liberated, become a public charg-e. We are 
asked with apparent horror, and an air of sincerity, "if we 
intend to let this slave population loose among- the whites;" 
and we are told if we do that, it will be destructive alike of 
the interests of both races; that the prejudices agfainst per- 
sons of color are so implacable they cannot live in peace, and 
a war of races will be the inevitable result of freeing" them 
among the whites — evils far more to be dreaded than any 
which can ensue from their continued enslavement. I have 
no such apprehension. Experience teaches me that all such 
fears are g-roundless. While I deny the doctrine that the 
normal condition of any race is that of slavery, or that there 
can be rig-htfully such a thing- as property in man, under any 
government or constitution, I will not and cannot believe 
that the restoration of any race to freedom will produce 
antagonisms that shall culminate in a war between those 
whose relationships are changed from that of gross injustice 
and oppression to that of self-dependence and freedom. God 
made of one blood all the nations that dwell together on the 
face of the earth, and gave man "dominion over the fish of 
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living 
thing that creepeth upon the earth;" but man over man,, 
never. 

The distinction here made between persons and animals 
is clear and marked. It is the distinction recognized in the 
jurisprudence of all civilized and Christian nations; and 
when a slave baron stands up here, and claims that his title 
to his fellowman rests upon the same recognized rights that 
give him a title to his horse, I see and feel the blighting 
effects of slavery, and realize the justice of the remarks 
which I submitted on this floor two years ago, when I said 
that— 

"I exempt, with pleasure, from any sweeping denuncia- 
tions which I may make, thousands of good and true men 



— 217 — 

who find themselves born to this inheritance, and whose 
whole lives give assurance to the world that their hearts are 
better than the system. Intrust a class of men in any 
society or government with absolute power over a servile 
race, and the bad men will not only use it and abuse it, as I 
shall show, but, by their clamorous cry of danger to the 
State, will perpetrate and give sanction to outrages that 
good and true men will be powerless to prevent. It is not 
that southern men and slaveholders are worse than other 
men, but because they are no better, that it is unsafe, if it 
were not in itself an indefensible wrong, to intrust them 
with absolute power over any part of the human race." 

Sir, the origin and authority for all the dominion man 
of right possesses in this world comes direct from the Father 
of all, and has been so recognized, not only by the great 
English commentator, but by the law-givers of every civilized 
nation on earth. There is no right outside of His authority^ 
much less in violation of it. 

The great epic poet of England writes — 

" He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl. 
Dominion absolute ; that right we hold 
By his donation ; but man over man 
He made not lord ; such title to himself 
Reserving, human left from human free." 

I ask the indulgence of the House while I read a few ex- 
tracts from the writings of the great men of the past, which 
will suffice to show how slavery was regarded by them. 

"Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice." 
— Plato. 

"Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery." — Soc- 
rates." 

" By the grand laws of nature all men are born free, and 
this law is universall}- binding upon all men." 

" Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws." 

"Whatever is just is also the true law ; nor can this true 
law be abrogated by any written enactment," 

"If there be such a power in the decrees and commands 
of fools, that the nature of things is changed by their votes» 
v/hy do they not decree that what is bad and pernicious shall 
be regarded as good and wholesome, or why, if the law can 
make wrong right, can it not make bad good ? " 



— 218 — 

"Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, 
have made anything- rather than laws." — Cicero. 

*'The law which supports slavery and opposes liberty 
must necessarily be condemned as cruel, for every feeling- 
of human nature advocates liberty. Slavery is introduced 
by human wickedness ; but God advocates liberty by the 
nature which he has implanted in the breast of every man." 

— FORTESCUE. 

"If neither captivity nor contract can, by the plain law 
of nature and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery, 
much less can they reduce the offspring-." 

"The primary aim of society is to protect individuals in 
the enjoyment of those absolute rig-hts which were vested in 
them by the immutable laws of nature. Hence it follows that 
the first and prime end of human laws is to maintain those 
absolute rig-hts of individuals." 

"If any human law shall require us to commit crime, we 
are bound to transg-ress that human law, or else we must 
offend both the natural and divine." — Blackstone. 

"What the Parliament doth shall be holden for naug-ht 
whenever it shall enact that which is contrary to the rig-hts 
of nature." — Lord Coke. 

"The essence of all law is justice. What is not justice 
is not law, and what is not law ought not to be obeyed." — 
Hampden. 

"No man is by nature the property of another. The 
rig-hts of nature must be some way forfeited before they can 
justly be taken away." — Dr. Johnson. 

"If you have the rig-ht to make another man a slave, he 
has the rig-ht to make you a slave." — Dr. Price. 

"It is injustice to permit slavery to remain a sing-le 
hour." — Pitt. 

" American slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun ; 
it constitutes the sum of all villainies." — John Wesley. 

"Man cannot have property in man. Slavery is a 
nuisance, to be put down, not compromised with, and to be 
assailed without cessation and without merc}^, by every 
blow that can be leveled at the monster." 

"Ireland and Irishmen should be foremost in seeking- to 
effect the emancipation of mankind." 

" The Americans alleg-ed that they had not perpetrated 
the crime (that of enslaving- the blacks), but inherited it 
from England. This, however, fact as it was, was still a 
paltry apology for America, who asserting liberty for herself, 
still used the brand and the lash against others." — Daniel 
O'CONNELL. 

"In regard to a regulation of slavery, my detestation 
of its existence induces me to know no such thing- as a reg-ula- 



— 219 — 

tion of robbery or a restriction of murder. Personal freedom is 
a rig-ht of which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal 
in so depriving- him, and he who withholds is no less crimi- 
nal in withholding-." — Charles James Fox. 

"I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of 
America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was found- 
ing- a land of slavery." — LaFayette. 

"I never mean, unless some particular circumstances 
should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, 
it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by 
which slavery in this country may be abolished by law. 

' ' But there is only one proper and effectual mode b}^ which 
it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority, 
and this, as far as my suffrag-e will go, shall never be want- 
ing." — Washington. 

"The abolition of domestic slaverj^ is the g-reatest object 
of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced 
in their infant state." — Jefferson. 

" It is wrong- to admit into the Constitution the idea that 
there can be property in man."— Madison. 

"We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very 
vitals of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States 
in which it has existed." — Monroe. 

" Is it not amazing that at a time when the rig-hts of 
humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a 
country above all others fond of liberty, that in such an ag-e 
and in such a country, we find men professing- a religion the 
most mild, humane, g-entle and g-enerous adopting such a 
principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with 
the Bible, and destructive to liberty? " — Patrick Henry. 

" Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man 
from the North who rises here to defend slavery on principle." 
— John Randolph. 

" The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged 
for among old parchments or musty records. They are writ- 
ten as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature 
by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or 
obscured by mortal power." — Alexander Hamilton. 

" Little can be added to what has been said and written 
on the subject of slavery. I concur 'in the opinion that it 
ought not to be introduced or permitted in any of the new 
States, and that it ought to be gradually diminished and 
finally abolished in all of them." — John Jay. 

"It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very 
sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of 
virtue and vice ; for what can be more false and more heartless 
than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights 



— 220 — 

of liumaiiity depend upon the color of the skin ? " — John 
QuiNCY Adams. 

Thus, sir, spoke some few of the great men of the past, and 
the just principles by them proclaimed control and direct to- 
day all the civilized governments of Europe. Shall the 
American g-overnment be less just than monarchical govern- 
ments ? Shall we alone cling" to slavery and the dead past, 
while all Christian nations are keeping* step to the march of 
human prog^ress, and the demands of a higher civilization ? 
L<et us hope not, and so act and vote as to secure a realization 
of that hope. 

I am for the liberation, not only of all slaves in this 
District, but wherever national jurisdiction extends and the 
national Constitution confers the power. I am for it, because 
I believe it an act of justice to white as well as black, to 
master as well as slave; and, if no other reason could be 
given, I am for it because, in the language of the distin- 
guished Senator from Massachusetts, "they are men by 
THE GRACE OP God, and this is enough." Free institutions 
will gain strength everywhere by a decree of emancipation 
at the national capital, while slave institutions will every- 
where be weakened. Such a triumph for the cause of free- 
dom as the passage of this act to-day, will be v/elcomed with 
gratitude not only 'by the ransomed slave, but with joy by 
the people everywhere in the loyal portions of our country. 
In Europe it will be hailed by the friends of liberty and prog- 
ress as the dawning of a new era in the United States, and 
it will make the line of demarcation at home more distinct 
between the supporters and opponents of the government. 

I rejoice that I am about to be permitted to record my 
vote in favor of this humane and beneficent measure. It is a 
day which, in common with millions of my countrymen, I 
have long hoped to see; and if I never give another vote in 
this House or elsewhere, I shall not have lived in vain, 
especially if I have hastened, even a single hour, the adoption 
by Congress of this act of national justice and national 
liberation. I shall have the satisfaction of leaving the endur- 
ing record of an action of which my children cannot but be 
proud, and of which no true man in any Christian nation 
could be ashamed. 



__221 

It is said, if the slaves in this District are at once eman- 
cipated, that society and domestic reg-ulations will be greatly 
derang-ed; that peace, order, security, industry and content- 
ment will vanish, and violence, disorder, robbery, idleness and 
crime will increase; that such an act can do no possible g"ood, 
while it would be unjust and a g-reat hardship to both master 
and slave. Such is not my view of this act, nor such, sir, as 
I read it, the history of emancipation in the British or Danish 
West Indies. Such, I am sure, will not be the result in this 
District. Why, sir, with all the disabilities imposed upon 
the colored population of this District by congressional enact- 
ments, municipal regulations, and blind prejudices — and 
they are sufficient to weig-h down and destroy the worthy and 
energ-etic, and encourage the vicious and indolent — with all 
these disabilities, without a parallel in any nation on earth, 
our colored population here will compare, advantageously to 
themselves, with the colored population of any city in the 
free States. They have amassed property beyond belief. 
Their church property alone, as I am informed, will exceed 
in value one hundred thousand doli^ars. They are taxed 
for the support of schools from which their children are ex- 
cluded, and maintain separate schools of their own. They 
have societies for the support of their sick and disabled, and 
never permit one of their number to be buried at public ex- 
pense. In thirty years not one of their number has been con- 
victed of a capital oiTense. As a body, they are industrious, 
frugal, orderly, trustworthy and religious. Instead of an 
increase, I venture to predict, as one of the results of this great 
measure, a decrease in disorder, theft, idleness and crime; and 
as an earnest that this prediction is not made without some 
foundation, let me read to you the preamble and resolution 
adopted the other day at a meeting of the colored ministers 
and leading members of the several colored churches in this 
city: 

"Whereas we have 1 :irned by the published proceedings 
of Congress that there is is probability of the peaceful and 
final abolishment of slavery in the District of Columbia: 
Therefore, 

"Be it resolved, That we recommend to the churches 
and congregations we represent that they set apart Sunday, 



222 

the 13tli day csf April, 1862, in connection with the usual 
religious services, as a day of special praj'er to Almig^hty 
God, that if this great boon of freedom is vouchsafed to our 
people, we may receive it in a becoming- manner, and by our 
orderly behavior, our devotion to our Christian duties, our 
obedience to the laws, we may show how worthy we are to 
enjoy it; and that He would be pleased, in His own way and 
in His own time, to proclaim liberty throughout all the land, 
unto all the inhabitants thereof." 

Need I say to this House and the country that the men 
who could draft and adopt such a preamble and resolution 
will receive their freedom with heartfelt joy, and not with 
riotous and offensive demonstrations? Before the President 
can sign this bill, they will have assembled in all their 
churches to receive with prayer and thanksgiving to the 
Almighty this ransom at your hands, and tears of gratitude 
will obliterate from their hearts the memory of many and 
grievous wrongs they have suffered from this government 
and their masters, and mingling with the echoing shouts on 
the sea and on the land, their voices will unite in gladness 
with the generous hearts who everywhere will join the grand 
anthem, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and 
good-will to men." 

Mr. Chairman, the bill which we are about to pass could 
not have passed but for this pro-slavery rebellion. The sa- 
gacity and wisdom of many of our statesmen, who in vain 
warned the nation that slavery and freedom could not forever 
live together peaceably, is being practically demonstrated. 
Jefferson and Jay, Franklin and the Adamses, Garrison and 
Calhoun, have all warned the people of the impossibility of 
long-continued peace with slavery. Speaking of the prob- 
able occurrence of a rupture between the North and the South, 
some ten or twelve years ago, in the United States Senate, 
John C. Calhoun said: 

" The war will last between the two sections while there 
is a slave in the South. The conflict will never terminate. 
The South, I fear, will not see it until it is too late. They 
will become more feeble every year, while the North will 
grow stronger and stronger." 

No longer ago than in 1858, in a speech at Springfield, 
Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, now president of the United 



States, made this prophetic declaration, which is passing- 
into history: 

"'A house divided ag-ainst itself cannot stand.' I be- 
lieve the g-overnment cannot endure half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect 
the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. 
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread 
of it, and place it where the public mind will rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its 
advocates will push it forward until it shall alike become law- 
ful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as 
South." 

How truly prophetic! To a man who comprehends that 
slavery, and slavery alone, is the cause of this rebellion, the 
duty of the government is plain. Such a man understands 
that there can be no permanent or lasting peace until the 
people of the free States are no longer responsible for the 
existence and continuance of slavery, either at the national 
capital, or in any territory or place where Congress has con- 
stitutional power to abolish it. Hence I rejoice at the intro- 
duction and certain passage of this timely measure. Others, 
I doubt not, will soon follow, and the people. North and 
South, will gradually array themselves on the side of free- 
dom or on the side of slavery. There is, and there can be, 
but this one all-absorbing- question in our national politics 
until it is disposed of, and that will continue to be agitated 
until the people "rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction." Until that time there can be but two 
great parties in this nation. The g-reat mass of a free peo- 
ple, in a government such as ours, must of necessity be 
divided into two, and into but two, leading political parties; 
and in the present, as in all coming- contests on the question 
of slavery, we can have but two formidable parties struggling- 
for the ascendency and control of the government. The one, 
no matter what its name or designation, will be the represen- 
tative of nationality and freedom; the other, that of privi- 
lege and slavery. As to other parties, representing, or pro- 
fessing to represent, the various shades of political opinions 
existing in the country, they cannot long continue, but must, 
as the Whig, American, and other parties have, in all the 



224 — 

States, fade away before the advancing- parties representing- 
the cherished sentiments of a pro-slavery privileged class on 
the one hand, and the aspirations of the people for liberty on 
the other. 

Individuals, however distinguished and worthy in all 
their relations in private life, who fail to co-operate earnestly 
with either the one or the other of the leading- parties repre- 
senting justice and freedom, or privilege and slavery, will 
continue to disappear, as they have done, from public life, 
and new and bolder leaders will be chosen by the people; for 
no generous and noble people will ever knowingly trust 
timid and time-serving leaders, understanding full well, as 
they do, that in such a contest as the party of privilege and slav- 
ery have forced upon this nation by their treason and rebellion, 
there can be but two armies and two battle-fields and two 
"banners, that of the stars and stripes, representing liberty 
and union, or that of the serpent and pelican, representing 
slavery and disunion. There can be no question as to the 
position which the people occupy. Let us, then, pro- 
crastinate no longer the hour which they have so long in vain 
looked for. Let the news go forth on the wings of the wind 
that the national capital is ransomed from slaver}^ and it 
shall nerve the arms of your soldiers, and strengthen the 
hold of the government in the hearts of the people. 

Mr. Chairman, the struggles and hopes of many long and 
weary years are centered in this eventful hour. The cry of 
the oppressed, "how long, O Lord, how long?" is to be 
answered to-day by the American Congress. A sublime act 
of justice is now to be recorded where it will never be obliter- 
ated, and, so far as the action of the representatives of the 
people can decree it, the fitting words of the President, spoken 
in his recent special message, "initiate and emancipate," 
shall have a life coequal with the Republic. God has set his 
seal upon these priceless words, and they, with the memory 
of him who uttered them, shall live in the hearts of the people 
forever. The golden morn, so long and so anxiously looked for 
by the friends of freedom in the United States, has dawned. 
A second national jubilee will henceforth be added to our 
calendar. The brave words heretofore uttered in behalf of 



»— li-io- 



humanity In this Hall, like *' bread cast upon the waters," 
are now " to return after many days" and find vindication of 
their purposes in a decree of freedom. The command of God 
to let the oppressed go free, is declared to be our duty, not 
only by our patriotic President, but by both branches of our 
national Congress; and let us hope that from this time hence- 
forth and forever, this nation is never again to be humil- 
iated and disgraced by being responsible for the existence and 
continuance of human slavery. No longer within our national 
jurisdiction, where Congress has constitutional power to pro- 
hibit it, shall slavery be tolerated. The nation is to-day 
entering upon a policy which cannot be reversed; and justice 
is vindicated, humanity recognized, and God obeyed. In the 
words of Mrs. Howe's patriotic anthem: 

' ' He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 

retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment 

seat : 
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my feet I 

Our God is marching on. 
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; 
As lie died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
While God is marching on." 



SPEKCH 

OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, 
In the House of Representatives, May 8, 1862. 



ON THE GOVERNMENT OP THE TERRITORY OP ARIZONA. 



The bill ( H. R. No. 357 ) to provide a temporary g"ov- 
ernment for the Territory of Arizona being* under considera- 
tion, Mr. Ashley addressed the House as follows: 

Mr. Speaker. When this bill came up, two or three 
weeks since, for the consideration of the House, I stated in 
my place that I did not desire to have it put upon its passag-e 
then, if any member wished to discuss it. No gentleman 
rising- at that time, I demanded the previous question on the 
third reading-. I did so at the sug-g-estion of a g-entleman at 
my side, a better parliamentarian than I profess to be. And 
when I declined to yield to my colleag-ue on the committee 
[ Mr. Wheeler ] , it was in consequence of a misunderstand- 
ing-. I was told that if I yielded, as the morning" hour would 
expire in three minutes, I wouid lose control of the bill. 1 

Letter from Hon. B. K. Bruce, LL. D., Washington, D. C. 
The records show that Mr. Ashley introduced the bill for the or- 
ganization of the Territory of Arizona. There was some opposition 
to the bill, as his speech discloses. But Mr. Ashley was anxious 
for the passag-e of the bill, for the reasons which he states, and also 
because he desired Congress, in the face of a great war, to treat with 
the contempt which it deserved, the pro-slavery declaration of the 
Supreme! Court, touching the right of Congress to prohibit slavery 
in national territories. This was practical legislation in favor of freedom. Mr. Ashley 
aided during his congressional life in securing by law the prohibition of slavery in 
the Territories ; the abolition of slavery in tlie District of Columbia, and the passage 
of the Thirteenth Amendment. This is a historic record which time cannot obscure 
or change. E. K. Bruce. 

(226) 




— 227 — 

therefore declined to yield, not from a desire to cut off my 
colleag-ue, for I understood then, as I do now, that ordering 
the main question on the third reading- left debate open, but 
prohibited amendments, which I desired to do. I think this 
explanation due to the House and to my colleague on the 
committee. 

Mr. Speaker, the strange spectacle is presented to-day in 
this House, of a people who have no protection from this 
government asking it through their Representative, and, if 
the motion to postpone prevails, of its being practically 
refused, by the very men, who, of all others, are pledged to the 
protection of the citizens who emigrate to the Territories of 
the United States. For the first time, I believe, in the 
history of our legislation, have the people of a Territory 
asked that a portion of such Territory which, from physical 
disabilities, they were not able to protect, should be taken off, 
and organized into a separate government. I do not intend 
to take up the time of the House in discussing our duty to 
resident citizens who have gone there. Shame and disgrace 
attach to a nation that is incapable, or which neglects or 
refuses to protect its citizens. Citizens from my own State, 
and of my own acquaintance, have gone into this Territory 
with the positive assurances of the late Administration that 
they would be protected, who have not only sacrificed all their 
wealth invested there, but many of them have lost their lives. 
For the first time in the history of our government have the 
white settlers in the Territory been driven from their homes, 
leaving their property, to the amount of millions, at the 
mercy and control of savage Indians. I knew but little of that 
Territory, except as I gathered it from friends who had gone 
there, and from gentlemen who had called on me to urge the 
necessity of establishing a territorial government there. 
Not on my motion, sir, was a bill first introduced here for the 
organization of this Territory. On the 24th of December 
last, the delegate who represents that people, who is sup- 
posed to know their wants quite as well as gentlemen resid- 
ing thousands of miles away, introduced a bill for that pur- 
pose. It was drawn up in the usual phraseology, and con- 
tained forty or fifty sections. But I preferred to have 
a short bill, something like the old bills organizing govern- 



— 228 — 

ments under Jefferson's administration, such as the bill 
organizing" Ohio. I therefore reported this bill, which has but 
three sections, and contains the Jeffersonian proviso, without 
which I could not consent to the organization of this Terri- 
tory. I therefore declined to yield to my colleague [Mr. Cox] 
to move to strike it out, for if it is organized by this Congress 
it must be free. 

I did not report this bill without having satisfied myself 
that the people of this Territory had sufficient population to 
entitle them to a territorial government. I will state, for the 
information of the House, some facts in connection with the 
history of the population of other Territories at the time of 
their organization. The Territory of Indiana was organised 
on the 7th of May, 1800, with a white population of 4,517. 
The Territory of Mississippi was organized on the 10th day 
of May, 1800, with a white population of 5,170. The Terri- 
tory^ of Michigan was organized on the 11th of January, 1805, 
with a population of 4,818. The Territory of Illinois was 
organized on the 11th of February, 1809, having been detached 
from the Territory of Indiana, and it had a population of 
11,501. The Territory of Minnesota was organized on the 
3d day of March, 1849, with a population of 6,038. The 
Territory of Washington was organized on the 2d of March, 
1853, having been detached from the Territory of Oregon. 
There is no statistical information giving the exact number 
of inhabitants of that Territory at the time of its organiza- 
tion; but I have consulted the delegate from ';he Territory 
of Washington, who was then and is now '.. resident of that 
Territory, who thinks that its population could not have ex- 
ceeded 2,000 or 2,500. At all events, after a territorial 
organization of nearly ten years, its population at the census 
in 1860 was only 11,578. 

The Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as gentlemen 
are aware, were organized on the 30th of May, 1854, when 
there was not a resident white inhabitant in either of 
them, by authority of law. Those who were there were in- 
truders, in contravention of a law excluding every white man 
from the Territory who was not connected with the Indian 
agencies. The Territory of Nevada was organized on the 
2d of March, 1861, when it had a population of 6,857. It 



229 — 

■was detached from the Territory of Utah, over which there 
was at that time a territorial gfovernment, as there is to-day 
a g-overnment of form merely over the people of Arizona, 
who ask for this territorial gfovernment. The deleg-ate from 
Nevada informed me to-day that the recent census, taken 
some six months only after the organization, shows a popu- 
lation of 17,000 souls, with two daily newspapers in the Terri- 
tory; proving- that that org-anization which secures life and 
property, and which g-ives civil protection, had brought these 
people to the Territory, where, with the teeming* wealth that 
everybody knows exists there, they will have within a year a 
population g-reater than that of the State of Oreg"on. On the 
2d of March, 1861, the Territory of Dakota was org^anized 
with a population of 4,839. The Territory of Arizona, as 
proposed to be org-anized, has in that part of it alone which 
is called Arizona county, 6,466 white inhabitants, 21 colored, 
and 4,040 civilized Indians, who live in their homes and till 
the soil. The Census Bureau have no official returns from 
the remaining- part of the country proposed to be included in 
the limits of the new Territory. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is the position of that Territory 
to-day. It is said, and I suppose with some truth, that a 
larg-e portion of this population has been driven out. But my 
information from the Territory and from General Heintzelman, 
who called upon me, and who was there for a number of 
years, and built Fort Yuma, is, that those people are driven 
into the State of Sonora, and that the moment the Indians 
and the secessionists, who have control of the Territory, 
retire, they will g-o back to their homes and resume their 
claims on the mines. General Heintzelman said to me, in a 
conversation I had with him about the importance and neces- 
sity of org-anizing- a g-overnment for this Territory, that, had 
it been organized five years ago, it would have contained to- 
day from fifty to seventy-five thousand population, who have 
been in the Territory, and failed to remain there because of 
the insecurity of person and property. That is the statement 
of a man who was there as a military officer of the United 
States. 

Now, sir, let us see what has been the opinion of men 
who have had this subject-matter under consideration before 



— 230 — 

it came into my hands. Let us see tlie importance attached 
to the org-anization of this Territory by men who have been 
reg"arded as statesmen. Senator Gwin, of California, intro- 
duced a bill for the org-anization of this Territory as early as 
the I7th December, 1857. Senator Douglas, who was then 
chairman of the Committee on Territories, reported back a 
bill to the Senate, and recommended its passag-e. So ionsf 
ag^o, then, as 1857, it was thoug^ht to be not only the duty of 
the g-overnment, but to be expedient and proper, by the 
g"entlemen having- charg-e of this matter, that a territorial 
g"overnment should be org"anized for that Territory. On the 
4th of February, 1859, Senator Green, of Missouri, intro- 
duced a bill for the org-anization of Dakota and Arizona, he 
being- then a member of the Committee on Territories. 
Jefferson Davis, a Senator at that time from the State of 
Mississippi, introduced a bill for the org-anization of the 
Territory of Arizuma, which was referred to the Committee 
on Territories, and Mr. Green, then chairman of the com- 
mittee, reported back substantially this same bill, with the 
recommendation that it pass. 

This Territory has elected three deleg-ates, at three 
separate and distinct elections, and sent them here to claim 
seats in this House, asking- that the Territory be org-anized, 
and the protection due from the g-overnment to the people 
there be extended to them. 

Now, I undertake to say here in my place, that if a terri- 
torial g-overnment had been organized in that Territory, and 
proper protection extended, the mines which are undeveloped 
in that region, and which are richer than those of Colorado, 
would have called to it a larger population to-day than now 
exists either in the Territory of Colorado or the Territory of 
Nevada. But for the lack of proper protection it was in- 
capable of sustaining and defending itself against the horde 
of Indians who make their inroads there, and the small band 
of secessionists who have been able, by conspiring with 
those Indians, to drive out the loyal Union men who here to- 
day ask your protection. These, sir, are facts which no 
gentleman of this House, here or elsewhere, can gainsay. 

Now, sir, I ask the attention of the House to this map 
[unrolling a map of the proposed and surrounding Territories] 



— 231— 

whicli will show what an immense Territory this is, and the 
boundary with which it is proposed to be organized. Here 
is the Territory of New Mexico, nearly a thousand miles in 
length from the eastern to the western boundary. It is pro- 
posed to constitute this Territory by running- a line from the 
southwestern boundary of Colorado, as is shown by this line, 
making a Territory larger than Nevada, larger than Colorado, 
larger than Utah, larger than the State of New York, and 
larger than anj' other State in the Union except Texas. 

Now, that territorial organization will secure the largest 
proportion of emigration which now goes into California by 
the great southern mail route. That is the testimony of 
General Heintzelman; and from the location of Fort Yuma, 
built by him, that and a fort at or near Calabagas, properl}' 
garrisoned, will afford all the protection that will be needed 
for the Territory and the government now proposed to be 
organized. 

Now, I do not propose, as I said in the outset, to take up 
the time of the House in the discussion of the importance 
and necessity of this measure. The honorable member from 
New Mexico, in the able and eloquent speech to which the 
House have just listened, has left no part of the ground 
unexplained, which I intended to occupy when I yielded the 
floor that it might be awarded to him, and I could not if 1 
would add anything on the point he has so clearly presented, 
and with which from a residence of many years in that 
Territory he must be so familiar. 

The band of secessionists now having control of. this 
Territory must be driven out of it, and there is no way by 
which this can be done so easily, and the Territory so effec- 
tually secured to the Union, as by giving it a territorial 
organization; such an organization as is asked for by the 
people who live there; such an organization as will afford it 
local protection. Why, sir, I have been informed by a gentle- 
man in whose integrity I confide to the utmost, that for more 
than three years no court has been held in that entire Terri- 
tory; that murders of our citizens have been perpetrated with 
impunity, not only by savages, but by the very men who are 
now in rebellion against the government, and assume to 



232 

g"Overn the Territory in the name of Jefferson Davis and the 
so-called southern confederacy. 

That this Territory must be wrested from its present 
occupants, all admit. It is in the possession of a small but 
desperate band of outlaws and marauders, who were driven 
from Kansas and the other frontier States of the South and 
West. They have been enabled by conspiring- with the 
savag-es, to drive out and despoil all the Union citizens, many 
of whom are to-day in the State of Sonora, Mexico, anxiously 
awaiting" the time when the g^overnment shall ag"ain assert 
its just authority over the Territory, and afford them that 
protection to which they are entitled, in order that they may 
return to their homes. 

I hope that the members of this House will not allow the 
appeal of the g-entleman from New York [Mr. Wheeler] , on 
the score of economy, to prevent them from discharg-in^ 
their solemn duty to our citizens. But I undertake to say 
that, in an economical point of view alone, it is the cheapest, 
best, and most effectual way of saving- that Territory to us, 
and of protecting- our citizens. 

Why, sir, no longer than a few days ago, when you were 
discussing- the tax bill, my friend from Indiana [Mr. Dunn] 
offered an amendment that this government should send out 
laborers to dig in the mines, to enable us to obtain the 
precious metals required to aid in carrying on this govern- 
ment. I undertake to say that if this Territory is organized 
at this time, in six months from its inauguration and the 
suppression of the rebellion there will be a population there 
larger than that of Nevada, because the mines are richer and 
emigrants may reach there by water communication. And 
I not only say there will be a population there larger than 
Nevada, but that the wealth produced will repay, a hundred 
fold, the expense which will be necessarily incurred, whether 
we organize the Territory or not, in its recapture from the 
men who now hold and occupy it. I ask you to look at the 
Territory of Colorado, which is not as rich in minerals as 
Arizona. A year or two ago there were scarcely a thousand 
American citizens there. To-day there is a population of 
forty-odd thousand, and in a year from this time Colorado will 
have a population greater than that of the State of Oregon. 



— 233 — 

The same may be said of Nevada. And do you tell me, then, 
that this Territory, which is admitted by all men who have 
traveled over it, or who have resided in it, to surpass all the 
other Territories in mineral wealth, will not have a larger 
population in the same length of time from its organization, 
when its population has run up to six or seven thousand under 
all its disadvantages. 

But in addition to this, I desire to say that there rests 
upon the majority of this House a solemn obligation to pass 
this bill, and to pass it substantially as we have reported it; 
to pass it prohibiting slavery in the Territory, as it is their 
duty to dedicate all our National Territories to freedom. At 
the request of the delegate from New Mexico, I have con- 
sented to amend the bill by striking out "Washington and 
inserting New Mexico, and to make one other amendment 
striking out all that part of the bill which relates to other 
Territories, and permit the prohibition of slavery to extend 
only to the Territory now proposed to be organized. I have 
done so because it has been represented to me by several 
members on this side of the House, for whose opinions I have 
great respect, that the general provision proposed on the sub- 
ject of slavery in other Territories should be made in another 
bill. My colleague on the committee from Illinois [Mr. 
Lovejoy] has in his charge, by direction of the committee, 
the bill introduced into the House some time ago by Honor- 
able Mr. Arnold, of Illinois, and which contains substantially 
the same provision touching the question of slavery in the 
other Territories. I have, therefore, consented to have the 
prohibition for other Territories omitted in the Arizona bill. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have given to the House the facts in 
relation to this matter. How much wealth has been carried 
into Arizona that is utterly and forever lost, unless this 
House now organizes this Territory, I cannot say, but the 
amount must be large. The citizens of Ohio alone have 
more than a million of dollars invested there, and the citizens 
of other States have invested large amounts. 

Mr. Gurley. I wish to state to the House that I see a 
gentleman in the gallery who has spent $50,000 of his own 
money in opening mines in Arizona, who was driven away 



— 234 — 

by the Indians; and if the g-overnment would only afford him 
and his associates, and others who may desire to go to that 
Territory protection, they will in return give us millions 
upon millions of dollars in silver. Gold has become so com- 
mon now that we do jiot care much about it. Legal tender is 
as g'ood as gold, and a little better, by our law. [Laughter.] . 
But this Territory is peculiarly rich in silver. As my col- 
league [Mr. Ashley] and as I have learned from my constit- 
uents who have gone there, I believe that $50,000,000 per 
annum would in a short time, say a few years, be extracted 
from the mines of that Territory in silver, if you will only 
protect the miners, so that they need not be compelled to 
work, holding the rifle in one hand, and the pick in the other, 
as they have hitherto been compelled to do. 

I wish to say that my attention has been called to this 
subject from the fact that I have many constituents who have 
been out there, and engaged in mining. Several prominent 
gentlemen from Cincinnati have lost their lives in that Terri- 
tory. For myself, I have nary gold mine nor silver mine in 
the Territory. 

Mr. Ashley. Mr. Speaker, so far as I am concerned, 
the amount of earthly treasure which I have laid up in this 
world is very small; I trust that, in the other, it will be pro- 
portionately large. I, too, have no gold or silver mine ia 
Arizona. I have friends there, however, who have invested 
large amounts in that Territory, and who will sacrifice all if 
the present condition of affairs should continue. I have had 
friends there whose lives have been sacrificed. I have con- 
ferred with gentlemen who have lived years in that Territory, 
who state — and their statement is confirmed by General 
Heintzelman — that whenever it is organized, from $50, 000, 000 
to $75,000,000 may be exported annually in the precious 
metals. But aside from that consideration, the citizens of 
the United States who have gone there have the right to 
protection. 

As I was saying, when interrupted by my colleague, the. 
first and highest duty of this government is to protect its 
citizens. Yet, sir, the strange spectacle is presented of oppo- 
sition to this bill by members on this side of the House, who, 



— 235 — 

with an inconsistency of principle wholly incomprehensible, 
propose that its further consideration shall be postponed 
until December next. Do not g-entlenaen know that if they 
postpone this matter until December next, it will be late in 
the summer or fall of next year before a g-overnment can be 
org-anized which will secure for these people the protection 
they now demand? It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that we fail 
fully to comprehend the wants and necessities of this perilous 
liour for the country. Men are so accustomed to run in 
grooves that even revolutions fail to lift a majority of those 
whom we have been accustomed to call leaders to the level 
plane of passing* events. History informs us that most of 
those who have been regarded in times past as great states- 
men and militar}^ heroes have fallen victims to their inability 
to rise to the level of the revolutionary plane. Unable to 
meet and overcome the exigencies of the hour, they have 
folded their arms, and, like Napoleon before Moscow, faltered, 
hesitated, and were lost. ' Well and truly has the poet said 
that— 

*' Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,. 
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the g-ood or evil side." 

Mr. Speaker, I do not by any means believe that the 
members of the House are indifferent to the great issues 
involved in this rebellion; indeed I know of the anxiety and 
solicitude of many of its most distinguished and patriotic 
members. But I do think, sir, that we fail to appreciate in 
all its terrible reality the importance and grandeur of the 
era in which Providence has cast our lot. We fail to realize 
that we are living in a time when the Republic of our 
fathers, in which are centered the hopes and aspirations of 
millions, is to be saved or lost. The march of events is so 
swift and irresistible, that we become dizzy in contemplating 
it, and do not remember that we are forever and forever being 
pressed forward. We seem to forget that we are to preserve 
constitutional liberty and American civilization, or permit 
them to go out in the night of barbarism and slavery. I 
appeal to all those who have not forgotten when, recently, 



— 236 — 

this capital was beleaguered bj the defiant hordes of treason, 
and who have not forgotten all of the exciting- and terrible 
events which have transpired within the past year; I appeal 
to all those who then saw, and still see, the dangers which 
beset this government and its people, whether they are not 
solicitous for the future. 

Sir, I do not believe there is a member in this House, 
unless he be an accomplice in the treason which is seeking 
the nation's life, who is not anxious that victory shall crown 
our arms, and that there shall be a speedy restoration of the 
Union. But as a body, we hesitate and are divided in action. 
Five long and weary months of this session have passed, in 
which we should have had action, prompt, efficient action, 
against the rebels, and .yet we sit deliberating. "We have 
done but little aside from voting men and money to aid in the 
speedy suppression of this rebellion. No concert or unity 
of purpose has thus far marked our legislation. The nation, 
in breathless suspense, is awaiting the moment when some 
practical measure of relief shall be proposed and- adopted. 
All the people ask is competent and efficient leadership, and 
millions of money and myriads of men are at our disposal. 
With impunity have traitors remained in our army, in our 
navy, and in almost every department of the government. 
We have done more, far more — I regret to say it — to encour- 
age treason than to terrify traitors, by our inaction and our 
divisions. 

Mr. Wickliffb. I do not know whether I understood 
the gentleman in a remark which he has just made, and 
therefore I rise to ask him a question. Are we to understand 
him as saying that there are -traitors still remaining in the 
army and navy, and in every department of the government? 

Mr. Ashley. Yes, sir; I made that statement. 

Mr. Wickliffe. In God's name, then, let us know who 
they are. 

Mr. Ashley. I give that as my opinion, based on facts 
which are within the reach of every member of this House. I 
believe that there still remain in all the departments of this 
government men who, at heart, are traitors to it. I knoiw 
that to be the opinion of a majority of the members of the 



— 237 — 

select committee on the conduct of the war, and of the Potter 
committee. The members of both these committees with 
whom I have conversed are well satisfied that there are many 
now in ofl&ce under this g"overnment who sympathize with 
those who are to-day seeking- the nation's life, and yet we 
remain apparently indiiferent and divided. 

Sir, we spend weeks in discussing- a tax bill, which mig-ht 
without much impropriety be called a bill to confiscate the 
property of loyal citizens, while we refuse, persistently refuse, 
to touch the property of rebels in arms ag-ainst the g-overn- 
ment. We prefer to fall back upon musty precedents, and thus 
attempt to divert the will of the nation from its purposes by 
discussing^ learned absurdities and constitutional technicali- 
ties, rather than g-rapple as practical men with the cause of 
the rebellion. Treachery and treason stalk before us on all 
sides and defy us. We are told, not only by traitors but by 
some who profess to be our friends, that we have no constitu- 
tional power to confiscate the property of rebels in arms 
ag-ainst the g-overnment; that we have no constitutional 
power to remove the cause and admitted support of the rebel- 
lion and thus make a like rebellion from the same cause for- 
ever impossible hereafter. Thus, amid this divers-it}^ of 
opinion, we are divided in council and rendered powerless in 
action, and are drifting- as a nation no one knows whither. 
Instead of directing- the public mind, as statesmen should 
do, by playing- the politician we divide and distract it. Now, 
sir — 

The; Speaker. The g-entleman must confine his remarks 
to the subject under discussion. The motion is to postpone. 

Mr. AsHi^EY. In my judg-ment, i'n the remarks which I 
am submitting-, I am not out of order; and if the Chair had 
waited to see the application which I propose to make of them, 
he would not, I am sure, have decided me out of order. 
However, if that be the decision of the Chair, I will not further 
continue them. 

The Speaker. The chair cannot see what relevancy 
the confiscation of the property of rebels has to the pending- 
question. 

Mr. Ashley. Papers and resolutions are often presented 
at the Clerk's desk to be read for the action of the House, 



— 238 — 

and questions of order are not unfrequently raised upon them. 
The Chair usually delays a decision until they are read, to 
ascertain their contents and relevancy, and in this instance I 
do not see why he should have departed from his usual course. 
I certainly do not intend to make any remarks which are out 
of order, and perhaps this allusion which I make to confisca- 
tion and our divisions on other subjects is not relevant; but I 
propose to make, with your consent, an application of these 
remarks, and you and the House may then judge whether 
they are pertinent to the pending- proposition or not. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, when interrupted, I was saying- that 
we had failed utterly to do anything- effective in behalf of the 
country at this session, if I except the act emancipating- 
the slaves in this District, and the passage by this House of 
the homestead bill and Pacifie railroad. We not only have 
permitted ourselves to be divided in council; we have not 
only failed to grapple vigorously with the cause of this rebel- 
lion, as statesmen and practical men, but, by playing the 
politician, we have divided the people at home. To-day we 
yield to the supercilious demands and pocket the insult of a 
foreign government, and to-morrow grow jubilant over a 
victory which means nothing. To-day we declare the back- 
bone of this rebellion broken, and to-morrow a reverse de- 
stroys this faith, and we grow as skeptical as before; but 
whether rejoicing in victory or mourning in defeat, we are 
constantly assured by the friends and apologists of slavery 
that we must not pass any law which will touch this question. 
We are assured by gentlemen that if we are only patriotic — 
if we are only patient, conciliatory and magnanimous — 
our erring Southern brethren will soon return and sin no 
more, which simply means, as I interpret it, that they will 
return to the Union when we give them all that they ask, and 
more than they ever asked before the rebellion. Thus, day 
by day, week by week, and month by month, for a whole 
year, has this panorama of victories and defeats been passing 
in view before our eyes; and yet we remain undecided, and 
"sit here deliberating in cold debate," without unity of 
purpose or harmony of action. This bill imposes a just 
punishment upon slavery, which has brought about this 



239 



rebellion. It puts it under the ban of the national g-overn- 
ment, and gives an earnest of our purpose, by declaring- that 
slavery and involuntary servitude shall cease in this Terri- 
tory forever. 

Sir, the motion to postpone this J^ill practically secures 
a direct vote upon it. The defeat of this motion, and the 
prompt org-anization of this Territory, I regard as very im- 
portant. Its passage will secure not only the approbation of 
the great majority of the loyal people of this country, but it 
will secure the approbation of the liberal people of every 
government in Europe. It will place the National Government 
where every earnest man in this House desires it to be placed 
— on the side of freedom. 

Sir, this indifference, this division of sentiment, to which 
I have felt it to be my duty to allude, sits like an incubus 
upon many, and they seem powerless to dispel it. Many who 
should be with us in action, as they profess to be in sentiment, 
unfortunately are encouraging others to vote against this 
bill, who otherwise would sustain it. If this bill fails — this 
national proclamation, as it may properly be called, of free- 
dom — it will fail by the votes of its professed friends, upon 
the pretext that it will cost the nation thirty or fourty thou- 
sand dollars annually. If it does fail, I ask every member 
upon this side of the House, I ask every member in this Hall, 
if we will not justly be charged with abandoning that cause 
which sent a majority of Republicans into this Hall, and 
which intrusted the present national Republican Administra- 
tion with the control of the government. 

Sir, I trust the motion will fail, and that before this 
House adjourns, or before the two days set apart for terri- 
torial business shall have passed, this bill, so far as the action 
of the Representatives of the people can decree it, will have 
become the law of the land. If the bill fails, and this great 
opftortun-ity be lost, and it should so happen at the next ses-- 
sion that ycwu cannot pass it, certainly those who so vote 
will incur a terrible responsibility, and of all men will be 
most guilt)'. 

Sir, I repeat that I hope the motion to postpone will fail. 



MR. ASHLEY'S LETTER ON PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S 
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 



FROM THE TOLEDO COMMERCIAL. 



"We publish this morning- a letter from Mr. Ashley to 
his constituents, congratulating- them on the final triumph of 
the great cause of human freedom, of which he has been for 
many years the effective and untiring advocate. The letter 
will be found vigorous and forcible in style, and pervaded by a 
hopeful spirit. 

Mr. Ashley presents an incontrovertible argument in 
favor of the constitutionality of the President's proclamation, 
which we trust our friends ma.y read carefully. We call 
special attention to the exposition of the political history of 
our State during the past two years, the results which fol- 
lowed, and the lesson which it teaches. Want of space 
forbids, at this time, further notice. 

Letter from Bishop Eenjamiu F. Lee, D. D., Waco, Texas. 
As soon as Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was 
published, Mr. Ashley at once wrote the following' happy- 
letter endorsing- and defending the President's great act, and 
congratulating his constituents on the certain triumph of the 
army and the cause of tlie slave. The promptness with 
which this letter was written, the forcible and vigorous style 
which pervades it, all tell that the head and heart of its 
author was for our liberation. The joy Mr. Ashley ex- 
presses,the hopeful spirit in which hewrote, and the prophecy 
lie then made, we all know have been in alargepart fulfilled. 

Benjamin F. Lee. 

( 240 ) 




BENJAMIN F. LEE. 



THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND 
THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM. 



Washington City, D. C, January 1st, 1863. 

Editor Commerciai. : The last of the hundred days' res- 
pite g-iven to slavery expired with the dying- .year, and this 
glorious morning- ushers in a new epoch in our history. 
The die is cast. To-day the Rubicon was crossed, and the 
nation, thanks to the persistent demands of her earnest sons, 
is at last irrevocably committed to the policy of universal 
emancipation. 

The proclamation of the President, which will reach you 
on the wing-s of the lig-htning- while I am writing", will meet 
with a welcome response from all unconditionally loyal men, 
and will sink deep into the hearts of the slaves who have long" 
prayed for the deliverance it will bring". The execution of 
this decree of freedom may be impeded by faction and delayed 
by adverse majorities here and there, but it cannot fail, 
because it is the sentiment of the people, and the nation is 
pledged to its fulfillment before the world. Its execution will 
require time, fortitude, and patience. A comprehensive 
statesmanship must guide, and the active co-operation of all 
loyal men will be necessary to direct, in safety, the change of 
a vast industrial system, and the sudden transition of four 
millions from slavery to freedom. 

Let us have faith that this grand purpose will be success- 
fully accomplished, and that from this day will date the 
dawning of a new era in the United States in favor of free- 
dom and constitutional government. I may be over sanguine 
in my hopes of the future, but it seems to me as if the hour 
has struck when the Union contemplated by our fathers is 
about to be realized. To me it appears that the present will 
be a year ever memorable in the history of the republic and 
the world, a year in which the enfranchised millions of the 
16 (241) 



242 

United States can stretch forth their g-lad hands to the en- 
franchised millions of Russia, and thank God that the estab- 
lishment of justice in the administration of these two great 
g-overnments has made the^ chattelizing- of men hereafter 
within all their borders forever impossible, and paved the 
way for breaking* the bondage of men among all the nations 
of earth. The hue and cry that will be raised by the rebels 
in the South and their sympathizers in the North will be that 
this proclamation of the President is unconstitutionai,. 
There are many men who will unblushingly denounce this 
act as unconstitutional, who never read the Constitution, and 
who, if they should read it, could not understand it. This 
pretended reverence for the Constitution comes with an ill 
grace from the men and the party that have never scrupled 
to disregard it, or to violate any compact, however sacred, 
which stood in the way of the demands of the slaveholding 
rebels. 

Article 1st, section 8th, of the Constitution provide 
that 

"The Congress shall have power 

"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, 
and make rules concerning captures on land and water. 

"To provide and maintain a navy. 

"To make rules for the government and regulation of 
the land and naval forces. 

" To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the 
laws of the Union, suppress insurrection and repel invasions. 

"To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining 
the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be 
employed in the service of the United States." 

These express grants of power are ample for all purposes 
of war. When Congress shall declare war or recognize the 
existence of war, all rules applicable to a state of war at once 
govern every movement of the army. These laws are well 
established among the civilized nations of the world. 

If a rebel must first be convicted by "due process of 
LAW," in a court of law, then no war, either offensive or 
defensive, can be carried on. Under such interpretation of 
the Constitution not a gun could be fired, because it might 
kill a rebel "without due process of law," and killing men 
without judge or jury not being regarded as "due process 



— 243 — 

OP LAW," withm the meaning of that term, as employed in the 
Constitution, it follows, according- to rebel log-ic, that all war 
on the part of the United States, ag-ainst them, is unconsti- 
tutional. But these rebel sympathizers will hardly assume 
now that they have a de facto g-overnment, that the g-overn- 
ment of the United States has no rig-ht to order the killing- 
of a rebel in battle, under the laws of war. They will con- 
cede that a rebel life may be taken constitutionally in battle, 
that his property may be taken for the subsistence of the 
army, that his hof ses, his cattle, anything but his slave, may 
be justly and constitutionally taken. But the President and 
his supporters are unscrupulously denounced as violators of 
the Constitution, because of this proclamation. I need not 
deny such an idiotic charge. In common with the loyal people 
of the United States, I revere the Constitution of my country, 
and hold it to be the supreme law of the land. I regard it as 
the most sacred heritage of our fathers, a charter of 
national liberty, which honestly interpreted, needs no amend- 
ment, and contains within itself every provision that under 
all possible exigencies are necessary to preserve it, and 
perpetuate the government and nation which it created. I 
would not evade or violate this Constitution. The people 
are in arms to maintain it, and they will maintain it. 
Slavery, and every enemy of the Constitution, must fall, but 
the Constitution and the Union must be preserved. I have 
believed from the first, as my constituents well know, that 
slavery must die before this rebellion could end. I have 
believed from the first that the petty stratagems of so-called 
statesmen, generals and doughface editors who feared, as 
well as those who worshiped slavery, while they might post- 
pone, could not prevent it. 

If it be true then, as even Honorable Robert J. Walker, 
of Mississippi, now concedes, "that sIvAvery must dik in 
ORDEK THAT THE CONSTITUTION MAY LIVE," he is an enemy of 
the Constitution who will not aid the overthrow of that 
power which is seeking the nation's life. Let it not be said 
by any pro-slavery rebel sympathizer in the North, that we 
cannot destroy slavery without destroying the Constitution. 
That great charter of pur liberties contains no provision, as 



— 244 — 

I interpret it, perpetually binding upon the nation the curse 
of human slavery. It contains no provisions securing- im- 
munity to traitors. No enemy of the g-overnment has any 
g-uaranteed rights under the Constitution, except those which 
are secured to him by the laws of war. Instead of attempt- 
ing- the destruction of slavery in violation of the Constitu- 
tion, or by evading any of its requirements, I believe it can 
be destroyed, as can every enemy of the government, within 
the Constitution, and by express provisions of the Constitu- 
tion. Whatever restrictions the Constitution may impose 
upon loyal citizens, I am sure it nowhere contains a guaran- 
tee for traitors, either in person or property. By the express 
provision of the Constitution, which I have quoted, the 
President, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and 
Navy of the United States, has authority under the war 
power to issue his emancipation proclamation. On this 
point the President thus speaks: 

"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United 
States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority 
and government of the United States, and as a fit and neces- 
sary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 
1st day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my 
purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of 
one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order 
and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the 
people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against 
the United States the following, to wit: 



"And by virtue of the power and for the purpose afore- 
said, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves 
within said designated States, and parts of States, are and 
henceforward shall be free, and that the executive govern- 
ment of the United States, including the military and naval 
authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom 
of said persons. 

"And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be 
free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self- 
defense, and I recommend to them that, in all cases when 
allov/ed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. 



— 245 — 

"And I therefore declare and make known, that such per- 
sons, of suitable conditions, will be received into the armed 
service of the United States to g-arrison forts, positions, sta- 
tions, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said 
service. 

"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of 
justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military neces- 
sity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the 
g-racious favor of Almig-hty God." 

/No man can read this proclamation of the President 
without a thrill of patriotic pride, and they who possess the 
consciousness, as I do, of having- labored from the first to 
secure the results which it ultimately promises, a perpetual 
union of these States, with harmonious institutions, based 
upon freedom instead of slavery, will feel a satisfaction 
which words are too feeble to express. 

Let all remember that we should not have had this 
glorious proclamation to-day had the earnest men of this 
country remained silent and criminally indifferent to this 
great movement, as did political fossils, compromisers, and 
the men in the North who did not believe in God or man. 
Such men joined hands with this class in almost every Re- 
publican county in our State, and did not scruple to apologize 
rfor the rebels, and defend the rightfulness of human slavery. 
This'unnatural coalition, called a "Union for the sake of the 
Union" party, made by pro-slavery men and timid men in and 
out of the Republican party, was made for the most part for 
the sake of the spoils of office in Republican States and 
counties, where the opposition were in a hopeless minority. 
They refused to do this in pro-slavery States and counties 
where they had undoubted majorities^ 

But in Republican States and counties they were clamor- 
ous for the "Union for the sake of the Union " movement. 
You will remember how boldly the most notorious pro- 
slavery men, in every Republican county in our District, 
rushed into the "Union for the sake of the Union" conven- 
tions, took the front seats without a scruple and demanded 
the best offices without a blush. This coalition throughout 
the State enabled the friends of slavery to break down the 
Republican party, and inaugurate, in its stead, this so-called 



— ■ 246 — 

*' Union movement " upon tlie Crittenden platform, thus se- 
curing- the g-reat States of Ohio, Nev/ York, Pennsylvania 
and Illinois, in the late elections, to the political opponents of 
Mr. Lincoln's administration. Wherever the Republican 
organization was maintained in its integrity, the administra- 
tion was handsomely sustained. Witness our overwhelming- 
triumphs in Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, Minnesota and 
Kansas. I need not tell you how earnestly I labored to pre- 
vent this fatal step in Ohio. When I first learned that such 
a movement was on foot in May or June, 1861, I went to 
Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and other places 
of lesser note, and protested against it. 

After coming to Washington, at the extra session, I sub- 
mitted to the Republican members of Congress the draft of 
a call for a State convention, which I had left with the State 
Central Committee, and every member of Congress from 
Ohio with but one exception, signed it, as a suggestion 
embodying their views on the subject, and I sent that to the 
State Committee at Columbus, but they disregarded all such 
suggestions, and made the unfortunate call they did for our 
State Convention, and, as was predicted, have succeeded in 
aiding the opposition in this State to secure fourteen of the 
nineteen members of the next Congress to the Vallandig-- 
ham Democracy. With the State Government at Columbus 
ostensibly in our possession, these tricksters and trimmers 
have increased the majority against us in Franklin county 
more than double. Are not our friends satisfied by this 
time, that this "Union for the sake of the Union" appeal is 
a political dodge on the part cff the most transparent of 
political adventurers? If they are not, let them try it again. 
From the first, I have been and am now in favor of a union of 
all earnest men, upon principle, to put down this rebellion, 
but not such a union as was secured by a coalition with pro- 
slavery men upon the Crittenden resolutions, for, as every 
man knows, those resolutions were a cheat and a sham, and 
I glory in the fact that I spat upon and repudiated them in 
my last canvass. Let us return to our principles and re- 
organize the only true Union party, the Republican party, 
the only party that has been true to freedom, the only party 



— 247 — 

that during- all this terrible conflict has had no traitor or 
rebel sympathizer in its ranks. 

The battle is to be wag-ed from this time henceforward, 
not only against the rebels, but also against the cause; and 
SUPPORT of the rebellion. There can be but two parties in 
the North, the party of freedom and the party of slavery. 
The party of freedom will be, as it ever has been, for the 
Union, the party of slavery will be as it ever has been, for all 
compromises demanded by their old political allies, the rebels. 
In this great contest, then, there can be but two sides, and 
he who is not for "Liberty and Union," must be against 
"Liberty and Union." The battle may be long- and rage 
fiercely, but from this day dates our victory. 

"Wake, watcher, see the mountain peaks 
Already catch a gfolden ray. 
Light on the far horizon speaks 

The dawning of a glorious day." 



*' Hard-fought and long the strife may be, 
The powers of wrong be slow to yield, 

But RIGHT shall gain the victory, 

And FREEDOM hold the battle-field." 

J. M. Ashley. 



PATRIOTIC ADDRESS OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, 



AT THE GREAT UNION WAR MEETING OF NORTHWESTERN 
OHIO, AT white's hall, TOLEDO, MARCH 18, 1863. 



Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I regret 
that more speakers from abroad are not present, to entertain 
and instruct you. I hoped it would only be necessary for me 
to approve in a few words this movement, and that we should 
all have the pleasure of listening- exclusively to disting-uished 
speakers from abroad. The saying- of Christ, when teachings 
in a synag-og-ue of Galilee, that "A prophet is not with- 
out HONOR SAVE IN HIS OWN COUNTRY, AND AMONG HIS OWN 

KIN AND IN HIS OWN HOUSE," is as apposite to this occasion, 
as that on which it was first uttered. I spoke at the depot 
to-day, and will therefore detain you but a short time now. 

Mr. President, I need not say that this grand demon- 
stration of to-day and to-night, to indorse the sentiments 
contained in the patriotic appeal of our brave brothers in 
arms, meets the unqualified approval of my judgment and 
my heart. [Applause.] 

Letter from Prof. B. W. Arnett, Jr., A. B. 
The reader will find that this short patriotic address is one of 
Mr. Ashley's most appropriate and clever off hand speeches. It was 
delivered at a meeting- called to endorse (as the reader will see) an 
appeal from the Union soldiers, at the front, for' concord at home, 
and a united and uncompromising- party, so as to secure a more vig- 
orous prosecution of the war. The speech has in it the genuine 
ring ; no man can mistake the purpose of the speaker. Mr. Ashley- 
saw at that early day the doom of slavery, and spoke only as a man 
B.W. ARNETT, JR. can speak, who has a glimpse of the future and beholds the ap- 
proaching triumph of ;the cause he loves. He proclaimed in this speech that 
" Truth's enemy wins a defeat with victory." This is profound philosophy, and is the 
kind of faith that comes only to great and heroic souls. B. W. Arnett, Jr. 

(248) 




— 249 — 

I am not only willing" but anxious to unite politically 
with all who will unconditionali^y sustain the g-overnment 
in this hour of ming-led peril and g^lor}-; with all who will 
sustain it in all its measures, including" the g-reatcst and best; 
with all who will in thus sustaining- it, give our heroic 
soldiers an honest support. I am for such a Union organiza- 
tion as shall know the political antecedents of no man who is 
outspoken and unqualified for the preservation of the g-overn-i 
ment, at every hazard. Our soldiers, who understand from 
practical experience the wants and necessities of the hour, 
have spoken to the nation with no unmeaning words. There 
is not a loyal man within the limits of the Republic who has 
heard their eloquent appeal, whose pulse has not beat quicker 
and whose heart has not been stirring with patriotic pride. 
Let every loyal citizen of whatever former party, who 
has heard that noble appeal, give it his generous approval. 
"Whatever may be the course of others, I am for the g-overn- 
ment unconditionally; for a vig-orous prosecution of the war, 
until our cause shall triumph. 

Mr. President, it is not necessary for me to say to 
our g-allant soldiers that they shall have in the future, is 
they have had in the past, my earnest support. They know 
that, and to-night I say to you and to them, that they who 
are periling life for home, kindred and country, have the 
right to command me, and when they command I shall obey. 
In whatever path they direct, touching the rebellion, I will 
cheerfully go. Their voice shall be my voice, their aspira- 
tions my aspirations, their hopes my hopes; for I know 
that their every hope, aspiration and prayer is for our 
country and our whole country — for the preservation of that 
Constitution which is our shield, our safety and our defense, 
for the triumph of that dear old flag, without a star obliterated 
or a stripe erased; that flag which to-day is the emblem of 
our national greatness and national glory — dearer at this 
hour to all patriot hearts than ever before, because of the 
efforts made by traitors to destroy it. There is no true man 
or woman within the limits of the republic who will not 
swear that 

•'No other flag shall ever float above our homes or graves.'* 



— 250 — 

Mr. President, had the voices of the nation's defend- 
ers been heara at the ballot-box last fall, as they oug-ht to 
have been, and as I urged that they should be, to our mem- 
bers of the legislature, no such disgrace would have come 
upon Ohio as the election of fourteen members to the next 
Congress, hostile to the war policy of the government; and 
of a State ticket pledged, by the platform upon which it was 
elected, to open and undisguised opposition to the constituted 
authorities of the nation. 

I am for a "Union Party," a party representing the 
living present and not the dead past — a party of principle, 
not of spoils — a party to be called, as it ought to have been 
from the first, *' The Free Union Party " — a party pledged 
to a reconstruction of the Union on a basis as enduring as 
the everlasting hills, having for its corner-stones Liberty and 
Justice. I am for such a political organization and no other, 
because any other will be a cheat and a sham. I know that, 
despite the adroit sophisms and petty stratagems of the 
timid, the scheming and unprincipled, we shall have such a 
party; and I believe, as time advances, it will overwhelm and 
destroy all others in its triumphal progress. But whether so 
or not, I intend by the blessing of God, to fight slavery and 
its allies to the bitter end. [Applause, long continued.] I 
repeat, that, by the blessing of God, I intend to fight slavery 
and its allies to the bitter end, because I believe the twain 
are the foes of our country and enemies of the human race. 
[Applause.] 

If it shall so be, that in this terrible and bitter contest the 
cause of freedom must fail, which I do not believj, let the 
enemies o the government rest assured that the opponents 
of the twin monsters, slavery and rebellion, will go down, 
if go down they must, with their faces to. the foe, and the 
stars and stripes streaming over their heads, 

*' And leaving in battle no blot on their name, 

Look proudly to Heaven, from the death-bed of fame." 

Mr. President, the most importan. Congress which 
ever assembled since the organization of our government, 



251 



has just closed Its labors. I need not enter into a discussion 
of the merits of the men or the measures of that body. Time 
will develop the importance of those measures and posterity 
will do them and their authors justice. Whatever acts were 
passed, were passed by men leg-ally and constitutionally 
elected for the emerg-ency — an emerg-ency without any parallel 
in our former history. Whatever mistakes that Cong-ress 
may have made, whatever it may have left undone which it 
oug-ht to have done, however short it may have come of our 
own expectations, or the expectations of others, the record is 
made up; no human hand can alter it. I intend to stand by 
it, and by it I ask to be judg-ed. One thing- is certain — the 
day of half-way measures is over; the time for compromising- 
with the South has forever passed, and our patriotic soldiers 
have told 3'ou what I now gratefully repeat, that voluntary 
submission to the rebels will not be tolerated. Nevermore 
will there be any leg-islative sympathy with rebellion. All 
patriotic men are beg-inning- to see and feel the necessity of 
this, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, every loyal citizen 
is standing in readiness to respond to the appeal of our brave 
soldiers, for the creation and support of a party which shall 
have for its first and highest object, the vindication of the 
g-overnment, the maintenance of the Union, the preserva- 
tion of constitutional liberty — a party that shall declare, open 
and undisguised hostility to all attempts at intervention or 
mediation in our affairs by foreign governments. On such a 
platform let all the free Union men unite, and present to the 
world a party which, at home and abroad, shall know no law 
but justice, which will ask "for nothing that is not 

RIGHT, and submit TO NOTHING THAT IS WRONG." Such a' 

party the politicians and demagogues will hate, but with an 
intelligent, liberty-loving people it will be invincible. In 
the triumph of such a party the honor of our country will re- 
main undimmed, and we will make a grander history for it 
than ever was dreamed by enthusiastic poet or orator. 

Mr. President, one of the greatest crises through 
which the nation ever passed, was passed during the recent 
session of Congress. Comparatively quiet, it was neverthe- 
less most dangerous. Less than three months ago, well- 



— 253 — 

grounded fears, growing- out of the secret plotting-s of North- 
ern rebel sympathizers, were entertained of a rebellion in the 
North. Traitors grew bold at the result of last fall's elec- 
tions, not only in but out of Congress, and secret meetings 
were held all over the North, having for their object a 
surrender of every patriotic principle to purchase an inglo- 
rious peace from the rebels. The infamy of this cowardly 
proposition requires no notice from me in this loyal assem- 
blage; nevertheless, the government was seriously threat- 
ened. Secret emissaries were sent with dishonorable propo- 
sitions of peace to Jeif . Davis, who, arch traitor that he is, 
was more honorable than they, and saved the complications 
they had woven, by indignantly spurning them from his 
presence. During this dreary period, men looked into each 
other's faces with fear and trembling — and, as was the case 
in the French Revolution, began to distrust each other. The 
turning-point at last came. When the secret clubs in New 
York City proposed to inaugurate their revolution, by tak- 
ing from the banks of that city, by force, what money they 
required; the rebuff our Northern enemies received from the 
rebel government at Richmond; the voices of our soldiers 
from the battlefield, and the kindly response of the friends 
of freedom in Europe to the President's Proclamation of 
Emancipation, headed by that champion of freedom, John 
Bright, arrested them in their mad career of infamy and 
treason, and some of their most reckless leaders sought the 
earliest moment to repair their mischief and publicly atone 
for what they had done; and to-day our noble ship, which 
many began to fear had become unmanageable, and might 
founder, after having passed through a raking fire and defied 
the fury of the storm for nearly two years, i& at last slowly 
but surely righting herself, and begins to answer to the will 
of the helmsman, Abraham Lincoln (God bless and preserve 
him). [Long and continued applause.] Yes, his arm has 
been strengthened, and his heart cheered by the manly appeal 
of our patriotic soldiers, and once more our grand old ship 
of state rides majestically and more than conqueror on the 
tempestuous sea of treason and rebellion [applause], and our 
government was never so strong at home or abroad as to-day. 



— 253 — 

and I know we shall triumph. [Applause.] I do not agree 
with my friend, Mr. Bates, who has just taken his seat, that 
our army on the Potomac will never be successful. I tell you 
that, under God, when Joe Hooker moves upon the enemy he 
-will lead the army of the Potomac to victory, [Great cheer- 
ing-.] I reserve to myself the right to criticise, at a proper 
time, the acts of all men, public or private, whether President, 
Cabinet officers. Commanding" General, or demag-og"ue stump 
orators. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, this country is yours and mine, what- 
ever has been or may be the supposed faults or shortcoming's 
of its rulers. It is our country from ocean to ocean, and 
from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. I yield alle- 
g-iance to the g-overnment of the United States, and to no 
other. I owe no divided alleg-iance. The flag- of my fathers 
is my flag". I never have, and, by the blessing- of heaven, I 
never will acknowledge any other. [Applause.] I have been 
laboring- for the past two years, as I never labored before, to 
perpetuate this government. I have, to the extent of my 
ability, and with an earnestness of purpose which has per- 
mitted no divided allegiance, contributed by my counsels, 
votes and all the means I could command, to defend that flag 
and preserve it as a representative of our nationality, and an 
emblem of our liberty. That I may have been mistaken in 
some of my counsels and some of my votes, is more than 
probable; but, however that may have been, you all know 
that, throughout this struggle, I have been earnestly on the 
side of the government and the old flag, and that the first 
and dearest wish of my heart has been and still is to see that 
banner, which to me is a representative, not only of our nation- 
ality, but of "Liberty and Union," also triumph on every 
battle-field, and to see the Constitution of our fathers re- 
established in its just sway over every State and Territory 
in the republic. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, many say I have committed blunders. 
Admit it, which I do not. I answer all such by quoting a 
rule which is as applicable to-day and here, as it was eighteen 
hundred years ago. "Let him who is without a fault 

CAST THE first STONE." 



— 254 — 

Apply this rule to all who have made mistakes in 
reference to this rebellion, and how long- would I stand here 
before the first stone would be cast? If all who have thoug"ht 
and written about the matter have committed blunders, may 
I, who am no more infallible than the rest of you, not be 
pardoned for erring- on the side of Liberty and Justice? If I 
have erred, my worst enemy will admit that so far as this 
great battle of liberty is concerned, 

" My faults have leaned to Virtue's side." 

One thing- is certain, I have not erred ag-ainst the g-ov- 
ernment and in favor of the rebels, or on the side of slavery. 
I have not remained silent as a political trickster would have 
done — nor stifled my convictions — nor played the demagogue, 
nor have I ever told you that everything was right, when I 
knew that almost everything was wrong, touching the 
management of the war. Had I thus acted, the indifferent, 
conservatives, and the shams, and even the rebel sympa- 
thizers among us, might have united in singing my praises, 
complimenting that rascally virtue, which some call discre- 
tion, and commending my statesmanship. Indeed had I acted 
against the government, only using the duplicity and false- 
hood necessary to prevent arrest as a traitor, many pretended 
friends of the government would have found little fault with 
my conduct. 

The opposition to me has all arisen because I have been 
untiring in pleading for such a change in the management of 
the war as I believed was necessary to save the nation's life. 
For this reason, I have demanded from the first, that our 
soldiers should fight for Liberty and Union, instead of Sla- 
very and Compromise. [Applause.] I did not, however, re- 
lax one iota of vigilance and devotion to the government, 
because in all things my views were not at once adopted by 
the Administration, and I should not have relaxed, if the}^ 
had not been adopted up to this hour. I am and have been 
for the government, despite the policy of the first eighteen 
months of this rebellion, which in my heart I could not ap- 
prove, I shall continue to vote, as I have, for every man and 
every dollar asked for by the President, and shall endeavor 



— 255 — 

to streng-then his hands, with whatever ability I possess, 
until this causeless and wicked rebellion is crushed. Do not 
be deceived. There will be no peace, there can be no peace, 
until the g-overnment triumphs. Until then, this struggle 
will go on. No human power can stay it, until the grand 
idea of the .human race shall be realized, and Liberty and 
Justice shall become the acknowledged corner-stones of our 
political edifice. [Applause.] That which seemed so plain 
and distinct to my hopeful vision, two years ago, is now being- 
seen by all ; that which was then to me the full-grown tree of 
Liberty, and which in my joyous faith I hailed with an over- 
flowing- heart that could not keep silent, it now needs no faith 
to see. To-day it is plainly visible to all. True, some, who 
all their lives have been blinded because they had no faith in 
God or man, may yet see it only as we behold the coming- 
spring-time, in the melting of the ice, the running- brooks, 
the budding leaf and the opening flower; but all beo-in to 
feel, and see, and know, that this is a war of ideas, a war 
between Liberty and Slavery, between a government of 
the people and an oligarchy, and that the spring-time of 
liberty, impartial and universal, has not only dawned, but 
is rapidly approaching the period of fruition. [Applause 
and cheers.] Let us take fresh hope. Let us renew our 
courage. This struggle will go on until Freedom conquers. 
[Applause.] From every blood-stained battle-field, the voices 
of the living- and the dead come to us, bidding- us be firm. 
From every loyal man and woman in the North, the demand 
is that this battle shall continue, and fathers, mothers, wives, 
sisters and brothers, who have lost their dearest and bravest 
on the field of conflict, are daily and nightly offering- up 
their earnest prayers that the God of nations will accept the 
sacrifice they have made, and save and regenerate their 
country. 

That it will be saved and regenerated I have never 
doubted. The battle may be long and rage fiercely, the 
night be dark, the enemy win victories, and thousands of our 
Northern homes be made cheerless and desolate, but there 
shall be no compromise and no surrender. The very air 
shall be burthened with the hopeful speech, and song-, 



— 256 — 

and prayer of the patriot, and it shall g-o on until the rig-ht 
shall triumph. And, as I now listen to the patriotic appeal 
of our soldiers, I seem to hear their united voices, clear, 
strong" and melodious, ring"ing in my ears, the welcome cheer- 
ing words of the poet: 

" It still g-oes on. The driving- rain 
May chill, but lig-ht will gleam again. 

' It still g-oes on. Truth's enemy 

Wins a defeat, with victory. 
It still g-oes on. Cold winter's snow 
Comes that the g-rass may greener grow ; 

, And Freedom's sun, whate'er befall, 

Shines warm and bright behind it all." 

[Long and continued applause.] 



WOOD COUNTY UNION CONVENTION. 



Eloquent Speech of Gen. Ashley at Bowling Green, 
September, 1863. 

As a report of the Wood County convention has already- 
been published, we g-ive a synopsis of the prefatory part 
of Mr. Ashley's speech, and a verbatim report of his con- 
cluding- remarks on that occasion. 

Of these remarks, which deserve the perusal of every 
patriot, it is sufficient to say that we have never witnessed 
more intense interest than was manifested by the audience 
during- their utterance. After numerous preliminary remarks, 
Mr. Ashley appealed to the people in favor of the President's 
Emancipation Proclamation. He said "that proclamation 
alone was worth one hundred thousand men." He showed 
the influence it had on the popular mind in Europe, in the 
offer of money by capitalists; in the expression of sym- 
pathy received by the President from 35,000 operators, 
headed by that noble man, John Brig-ht; in the endorsement 
and approval of the emancipation proclamation by the lead- 
ing relig-ious bodies of England, France and Germany. 

Letter from Benjamia W. Arnett, D. D. 
I have read this g-rand speech with unaUoyed satisfaction. When 
I remember the dark nights of sorrow through which our race was 
then traveling-, and the discouraging- conditions under which it was 
delivered, I am simply charmed with its eloquence and power, and 
can form a just estimate of the man who made it. I am sure that 
all men who read the speeches in this volume will ag-ree with me, 
.. ^j,B, that what Whittier years ago wrote of Governor Ritner of Pennsyl- 

f <^' ' vania, may now be appropriately quoted and] said of Mr. Ashley, 

B. -w. ARNETT. for all have come to know that during our great anti-slavery con- 
flict, he stood " Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, erect when multi- 
tudes bent to the storm ; When traitors to freedom and honor and God, are bowed to 
an idol polluted with blood." 

Not only the Afro-American, but all men who love liberty, will join in approving 
the testimony which in this " souvenir" we now prepare for him. I can never forget 
the impression made on my mind, as I sat in the gallery of the House of Representa- 
tives and witnessed the last great parliamentary battle between Freedom and Slavery. 
It was on the 31st of January, 1865. The Hon. James M. Ashley was leading the army 
of heroes. After the lapse of twenty-eight years, I can vividly see his manly form and 
hear his words, as he plead for the cause of universal freedom. The shouts of the 
multitude, the songs of triumph, the cannon's roar, all are with me now, and the 
merry bells of freedom are still ringing in my ears. As long as men admire the heroic 
and brave, the hero of this great battle will be remembered, and his name will be 
among the immortal of the ages. B. W. Arnett. 

17 (257) 




— 258 — 

They thanked the President for this act in the name of God, 
of humanity and of liberty. He showed that this sing-le act 
had chang-ed the tone and sentiment of the masses in Europe 
towards the North, and that we need not fear intervention as 
we did one year ag"o. He stated that it had kindled the flame 
of patriotism in the hearts of northern freemen, and that 
the united response from our patriotic soldiers plainly showed 
that they fully comprehended the true nature of the conflict, 
and thanked the President for releasing- them from the de- 
g-rading- occupation of g-uarding- the property of rebels, and 
from upholding- the infamy of slavery. 

The policy of freedom thus inaug-urated had united the 
unconditional friends of freedom at home, in the army and 
in Europe, He asked all who had differed, and all who now 
differed with the policy of the President, on the question of 
emancipation, to stand by the g-overnment to the last, urging- 
them to forg-et all partisan prejudices, and by unity of action 
save our national existence, and accomplish the triumph of 
free government. He said that for over eighteen months he 
and the friends of freedom generally had stood by the gov- 
ernment and had voted all the men and all the money they 
asked, although the administration had persistently refused 
to adopt the policy of emancipation, and he should have 
continued that support had their policy remained unchanged. 
He said he was a passenger on the old ship, and he intended 
to go down with her if she were lost, and therefore he stood 
firmly and unwaveringly by her commander. Is it asking 
too much of those who now differ with us on the. policy of 
the government in regard to emancipation, to render it the 
same cordial support which we rendered, when the contrary 
policy prevailed? 

Mr. Ashley closed this speech with an appeal which we 
give verbatim. He said: 

Fellow Citizens: The terrible conflict in which as a 
nation we are engaged will be recorded in history as the most 
eventful of the nineteenth century. It will constitute one 
of those memorable epochs which come but once in centuries; 
from which, if we «ire successful, freedom will date its 
grandest triumph. This war is indeed the battle of the 



— 259 — 

ag-es. The best hopes of mankind on earth are wrapped up 
in the issue. Man's capacity for self-g-overnment is on trial 
before the world, and we must conquer or the verdict will be 
ag"ainst democratic g-overnment and in favor of privilege 
and despotism everywhere. [Applause.] 

The conspirators and rebels are attempting- the destruc- 
tion of our democratic g-overnment, because democracy, 
"pure and undefiled," is opposed to privileg-e and slavery. 
They desire the establishment of a g-overnment which shall 
be administered exclusively by a privileg-ed class, a slave- 
holding- aristocracy, in which capital shall own the laborer. 

The issue is fairly made up, and we cannot ig-nore or 
escape from it if we would. The question then, which every 
loyal man is called upon to decide this day, is, shall our 
nationality and the constitution of our fathers be preserved, 
with freedom as the fundamental law of the republic, or 
shall our nationality and the republic be destroyed and an 
anti-democratic g-overnment be erected upon its ruins, with 
slavery as its chief corner-stone? There can be but one re- 
sponse to this interrog-atory by every patriotic Union man 
before me; and I know that there will be but one response, 
not only by you, but by the loyal heart of the nation. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Fellow Citizens : The earnest, uncompromising- anti- 
slavery men of this country, thoug-h few in numbers, have 
chang-ed the policy of this government; whatever pro-slavery 
politicians, or timid, vacillating", non-committal men may 
say or think, I say to you, that the anti-slavery men of the 
nation, with the gospel of liberty in their hearts, and the 
sword of justice as their weapon, have, by the almighty 
power and force of truth, educated the nation up to the 
present standpoint, and thus caused the administration to 
adopt their policy. I need hardly tell you that, since the 
outbreak of the rebellion, the great heart of the nation, 
under their teachings, has been slowly but surely tending 
toward universal emancipation. Unquestionably a large ma- 
jority of the loyal men of the republic have, since the 1st 
of January, sworn in their hearts, as I had long ago sworn 
in mine, that, as slavery was the cause of this rebellion, it 



— 260 — 

shall die. [Applause.] All earnest men will agree with 
the disting-uished Secretary of the Treasury, that "this is 
no time to split hairs of log-ic." What matters it to any 
liberty-loving- man how slavery die, so that it die, whether 
by military power or cong-ressional enactment? [Applause.] 
All may, with propriety, call the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion of the President a war measure, for up to this hour 
General Emancipation has been, by far, the most successful 
of our g-enerals. [Applause.] But it would be unjust and 
unmanly to say that the Emancipation Proclamation was 
nothing- more than a war measure. I say to you it is more; 
it is a measure of justice, and cannot be properly separated 
from the measures which make up the entire policy of the 
administration. [Applause.] The truth is, and I will not 
disguise it, for favor or through fear, that if the President 
and Congress have not done, as I say they have not, all that 
they might properly and constitutionally have done to hurt 
slavery, ,they at least have knowingly done no act to help 
slavery, and they could hot have done so without being held 
guilty before the world of an infamy which would have 
blasted, and justly, their names and memories forever. [Ap- 
plause.] Every act of the President and Congress touching 
the subject of slavery has been favorable to a policy, which, 
if logically followed, will sooner or later result in universal 
emancipation. [Applause.] The rebel chiefs understand 
this, and the whole world, thanks to the President's procla- 
mation, now comprehends it. The public man who did not 
so read and understand this issue from the first, has a far 
better claim to wear the title given to the Bourbons of 
France, than to be classed with the statesmen of this coun^ 
try. [Applause.] Let any intelligent man ask himself what 
has been and what now is the polic}^ of the administration 
on the slavery question, and he will know which way the 
nation is moving; for, on this question, the administration 
has never led, but followed, and that very tardily, the public 
voice. [Applause.] Let the acts of the President and Con- 
gress answer as to what is to-day the policy of the govern- 
ment. 

Congress passed and the President approved an act 



— 261 — 

emancipating" all slaves at the national capitol. [Applause.] 
Congress passed and the President approved an act prohibit- 
ing- slavery forever in all the territories of the republic. 
[Applause.] Cong-ress, at the request of the President, 
offered to aid pecuniarily the border slave States if they 
would liberate all slaves, and authorissed the employment of 
slaves in the military and naval service of the United States. 
[Applause.] Robert Small and other slaves who have cap- 
tured prizes and come within our lines, have been treated by 
the g-overnment as free men, and the usual proportion of the 
prize money has been awarded them, and to-day the g-overn- 
ment is g-ladly accepting- the services of all black men, north 
or south, whether they have been free or slave, who will 
enlist in the service of the United States. [Applause.] 

A new treaty has been made with Great Britain, the 
more effectually to suppress the trade in African slaves, and 
the first slave pirate ever executed under our law was hang-ed 
by order of President Lincoln. Cong-ress passed, and the 
President approved, an act prohibiting- the trade in Chinese 
coolies, and Hayti and Liberia have been recog-nized as be- 
long-ing- to the family of nations. [Applause.] 

Where, I ask you as honest men, do all these acts log-i- 
cally and unmistakably lead us as a nation? Let every intel- 
ligent man answer for himself. I tell you that the govern- 
ment is irrevocably committed to the policy of emancipation, 
and no power on earth can turn it back. [Applause.] The 
President's proclamation was then, in my opinion, not only a 
military necessity, but an act of justice also, demanded by 
the logic of events no less than by the prudent policy which a 
wise statesmanship had inaugurated, as the leading measure 
of the administration for the preservation of the republic. 
[Applause.] 

On this point let the President speak. I read from his 
proclamation: 

" We say we are for the Union. The world will not for- 
get that we say this. We know how to save the Union. 
The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we 
here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving 
freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honorable 
alike in what "we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly 



— 262 — 

save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other 
means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, 
peaceful, generous, just, a way which if followed the world 
will approve, and God must forever bless." [Applause.] 

Accepting" this view as the true and logical interpreta- 
tion of the issue involved in this terrible conflict through 
which we are passing, let us consecrate ourselves anew to 
the great work before us, pledging ourselves, before heaven 
and the world, that come what may, intervention and foreign 
war, disaster and defeat of our armies, and betrayal by 
Northern traitors at home, we will never compromise or 
SURRENDER. [Applause.] If we are earnestly united, no 
power on earth can conquer us, and we may rest assured that 
the nation thus purified, strengthened and invigorated by the 
baptism of fire and blood through which we are passing, 
will come out of the conflict redeemed and regenerated, con- 
secrated to Liberty, by the genius of universal emancipa- 
tion. [Applause.] 



Mr. Chairman: I admit, that at the beginning of our 
anti-slavery battle, I did not expect to see slavery go out in a 
baptism of fire and blood. I hoped, as peaceful and patriotic 
men everywhere hoped, that the battle would be one of bal- 
lots instead of bullets. The slave baron conspirators, in 
their madness, decreed that it should be otherwise. 

Now, we all recognize "that he who takes the sword, 
shall perish by the sword." And you and I know, that after 
our long, dark night of national wrong and crime, " that the 
sum of all villainies" must now also perish by the sword. 
[Applause.] 

"With a joy which no human language can express, be- 
cause it reaches the sublime, and passeth all understanding, 
the ransomed nation will soon be ready to join in one united 
hallelujah, as from its soul it sings Mrs. Howe's Grand 
National Anthem, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic": 

"Mine eyes have seen the glorj^ of the coming of the Lord; 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath 
are stored, 



— 263 — 

He has loosed the fateful lig-htning- of His terrible swift 
sword; 

His truth is marching- on. 

*'I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 

camps; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening- dews and 

damps; 
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flickering 

lamps; 

His day is marching on. 

*' I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel; 
As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall 

deal; 
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his 

heel; 

Since God is marching on. 

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 

retreat; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat; 
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet' 

Our God is marching on. 

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 

While God is marching- on." 



SPEKCH 

OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, 
In the House of Representatives, March 30th, 1864. 



THE LIBERATION AND RESTORATION OP THE SOUTH. 



Mr. Speaker: The hour has come in which Congress 
must deal with the great crime of th(j nineteenth century. 
The leading" conspirators must be punished by punishments 
commensurate with their terrible deeds. Every loyal citizen 
of the United States will expect this of those to whom they 
have at this time confided the destinies of the nation. They 
will demand that this g-reat crime be so dealt with, that the 
government shall obtain " indemnity for the past and security 
for the future." As one of the rep4-esentatives of the loyal 
people of Ohio, I demanded at the beginning of the rebellion, 
and I demand now, that it shall be so dealt with, that a like 
crime from the same cause shall in the future be impossible. 

The proper disposition by Congress of the causes which 
produced the rebellion, and all questions intimately connected 

Letter from Bishop A. Grant, Atlanta, Ga. 
This was Mr. Ashley's first speech in Congress on the perplexing- 
question of reconstruction. He declared in lang-uag-e that no one 
can misunderstand, that neither Mr. Lincoln as President, nor any 
General of the Army, was vested by the Constitution or the laws of 
war, with authority to organize civil State g-overnments in any of 
the rebel States. He claimed that Congress alone was clothed by 
the Constitution with this extraordinary power. He denied that any 
President or General had any authority vested in them for such pur- 
A. GRANT. pose. His criticisms of the President and General Banks for his 

blundering and unfortunate proclamation in Louisiana were strong and vigorous, just 
and manly, and will be read with interest and instruction now. In his letter on page 
310, Mr. Sumner heartily endorses this great speech. A. Grant. 

(264) 




— 265 — 

with it, have g-iven mc, as they doubtless have g"iven every 
loyal man, great anxiety. 

The question before us is, how shall the States whose 
governments have been usurped or overthrown, be re-estab- 
lished and their loyal citizens be re-invested with all the 
rig-hts, privileg-es and immunities of citizens of free States in 
the American Union. 

This is indeed a question of transcendent importance — 
one with which the mere politician has as little fitness as 
disposition to g^rapple. To meet, and properly dispose of it, 
demands the highest order of statesmanship. The untried 
problem of re-establishing loyal State governments over vast 
districts of country, so long in rebellion, involves the gravest 
responsibility, and presents questions of constitutional power 
which have never before been discussed, as they must now be 
discussed, by the National Congress. 

I am free to confess that from the first my anxiety has 
been, not so much how to conquer the rebels, as how to secure 
an honorable and enduring peace after they were conquered. 
This is a question, which, until its final settlement, will de- 
mand the serious consideration of the ablest statesmen in the 
nation. 

It may be an unwelcome question to many gentlemen in 
this House, I doubt not that it is. I have reason to know 
that it was an unwelcome question to many in the last Con- 
gress, but whether welcome or unwelcome, it cannot now be 
disposed of or excluded from these halls as it was two years 
ago by parliamentary strategy and congressional dodging. 

The logic of events is forcing the nation onward with 
such rapidity that we cannot, if we would, evade this ques- 
tion, and many gentlemen are now prepared to act, who were 
opposed to all action two years ago. Thanks to our heroic 
army, the rebellion is now so far suppressed, that the question 
of reconstruction is forced upon and demands our immediate 
consideration. All can now see that it ought not to have 
been delayed so long, and I am sure all will agree that it 
cannot longer be neglected, without great injustice to the 
loyal people of the rebellious districts. 

At the outbreak of the rebellion, practical men saw and 
urged the importance and necessity of an act of Congress to 



-266 — 

provide temporary governments of some kind, for the dis- 
tricts of country in rebellion; t-o authorize the loyal citizens 
residing- therein, as soon as the rebellion was sufficiently 
suppressed, to reorganize State governments, where they had 
been usurped or overthrown, and to guarantee to them State 
governments, republican in form, as prescribed by the 
national Constitution. The bill from the select committee 
now before the House, recognizes fully and clearly the 
authority of Congress to pass all laws which are necessarj^ 
and proper to carry into practical effect that constitutional 
guarantee. The authority to legislate on this subject, once 
admitted — whether under the war powers or peace powers of 
Congress — the only questions which can possibly divide the 
unconditional Union men in Congress, or "throughout the 
country, will be as to matters of detail. It will be noticed 
that the committee have sought to avoid the adoption of any 
especial theory, in the bill which they have presented. 
"Whether the rebel usurpation has destroyed the constitutional 
governments of the seceded States, or whether those State 
governments are simply suspended or in abeyance by reason 
of the abdication of their officers, or whether by the acts of 
treason and rebellion on the part of their citizens and con- 
stituted authorities, the States thus in rebellion have com- 
mitted State suicide, the committee have thought best to 
leave to the determination of each member for himself. 
Hence, no report is submitted with this bill. For the same 
reason, no report accompanied the bill submitted b}- me on 
this subject two years ago, with the approval of a majority 
of the Committee on Territories. The sovereignty of the 
United States, and the power of Congress under the Consti- 
tution, to legislate for the districts of country in rebellion, is 
ully recognized by this bill. All that I have ever contended 
ffor touching the question of congressional power is here 
admitted. Determining from the outbreak of the rebellion, 
that slavery should die, I have sought only for such congres- 
sional action as would restore the rebel States to the Union, 
with freedom as their fundamental law. For this purpose, I 
then insisted and now insist, that until such time as the 
loyal citizens, in each of the rebellious States, are numerous 
enough to maintain a State government, and shall adopt a 



— 267 — 

Constitution prohibiting- slavery forever, they oug-ht to be 
treated and g-overned as citizens of the United States, resid- 
ing- within the national jurisdiction, on national territory, 
without State g-overnments. With me this has been from the 
first the all-important point. Practically, this idea pervades 
the entire bill before us. I care not whether the power to 
g-overn the districts of country, declared by the President's 
proclamation to be in rebellion, after they shall have been 
subjug-ated, is derived from the war powers or the peace 
powers of Cong-ress. I believe either to be constitutional 
and sufficient. I believe we may establish either temporary 
military g-overnments, or temporary civil g-overnments. 
Certainly, Cong-ress may, as the representative of the sover- 
eig-n power of the nation, pass such laws as in its opinion 
may be necessary to secure the rig-hts and liberties of the 
loyal people in those States whose governments have been 
destroyed by traitors. To this end Cong-ress may, by author- 
ity of the national Constitution, prescribe such conditions 
for the restoration of the States whose g-overnments have 
been usurped or overthrown, as will best secure the peace and 
stability of the nation, and g-uarantee to such States repub- 
lican g-overnments. Believing that this can be done in no 
way so safely and so well as [by organizing and recognizing" 
new State governments, as provided for by this bill, I am in 
favor of its passage. 

Mr. Speaker, in attempting a solution of the difficulties 
which environ us on this question of reconstruction, I have 
sought only for the adoption of such measures as would 
secure the safe and spkedy restoration to the Union of all 
States in rebellion, on a basis that would command the 
approval of the ablest statesmen of the country. I have had 
and now have no theory that I will not yield to accomplish 
this most desirable result. I believe it to be the imperative 
duty of Cong-ress to lay deep the foundation of our proposed 
action on this subject. I believe it to be our duty to declare, 
in the most solemn manner, that if hereafter any State shall 
renounce its alleg-iance to the national Constitution and 
appeal from the decision of the ballot-box to the arbitrament 
of the sword, it shall be subjug-ated by the sword, and all its 
prerogatives as a State be forfeited, until such time as Con- 



— 268 — 

gress provides for its reorganization, or until its loyal citizens 
shall, in the exercise of their inherent rights of self-govern- 
ment, call a convention and adopt a new State Constitution,, 
republican in form, in conformity with and subject to the 
Constitution of the United States, and be recognized or re-ad- 
mitted by Congress to exercise their proportionate part of the 
governing power of the country. 

Mr. Speaker, I can give my support to this bill and de- 
fend it, only on the assumption that there are no constitu- 
tional State governments in the rebel States. Are there any 
such State governments? I hold that there are not. I hold 
that a State may forfeit its right as part of the supreme gov- 
erning power of the republic. I think this proposition can- 
not be successfully controverted. A majority of the electors 
of any State in this Union may, unquestionably, alter or abol- 
ish their written Constitution, and refuse to establish another 
in its stead. If they may, as all concede, do this, then the 
abolition of a State Constitution, in the manner prescribed by 
the organic or statute law of the State, and the adoption of a 
new Constitution, renouncing their allegiance to the United 
States, would terminate their right, under the Constitution, 
to exercise any part of the governing power of the nation. 
If, then, a State of this Union may, by the actions of its citi- 
zens, forfeit its rights under the Constitution to exercise 
part of the sovereign power of the nation, or in any way 
cease to maintain such a State government as can be recog- 
nized by Congress under the Constitution, the assumption 
that " a State once a State is always a State," is a fallacy as 
pernicious as it is false. 

I trust that no argument is needed at this late day to 
refute the illogical and sophistical reasoning which was so 
prevalent in this Hall and throughout the country during the 
Congress immediately preceding the rebellion. It will be 
remembered that it was then, and is now to some extent, 
maintained that if any one or more States withdrew from 
the Union by the action of a majority of its qualified elec- 
tors, "for reasons, the sufficiency of which, before God and 
the great tribunal of human history, they alone should be 
the judge," that their action in so doing in conformity with 
the laws of their own State, destroyed the government of 



— 269 — 

the United States, and left eacli State free to act for itself as 
an independent nation. 

It was only those who were indoctrinated with the false 
theory that the United States were a confederated govern- 
ment and not a nation, or who were blinded by the Calhoun 
doctrine of State rights, who set up for answer to this shal- 
low assumption, the claim "that a State once a State is al- 
ways a State." 

I lay it down as a proposition, which I do not believe can 
be controverted, that the constitutional relations of a State to 
the national government ma}'' terminate, and the State cease, 
as a political organization, to be a State invested by the Con- 
stitution with part of the sovereignty of the nation, in one of 
the following modes: 

1. By successful revolution and the establishment of an 
independent government. 

2. By the conquest of a foreign power. 

3. By the treaty-making power, whereby one or more 
States, or any part of a State, may be ceded to a foreign na- 
tion. 

4. By acts of treason and rebellion on the part of the 
constituted authorities of a State sustained by a majority of 
its citizens. 

5. By the refusal of a majority of the electors in a State 
to perform their duties as citizens, and by prohibiting the 
minority from exercising the functions of a State government 
■under the Constitution. 

Other modes might be named, and have doubtless sug- 
gested themselves to gentlemen who have examined the sub- 
ject. These, however, will suf&ce to illustrate the views I de- 
sire to present. 

The first and second propositions will not be disputed. 
All will concede that by successful revolution or by conquest 
States may cease to be members of the Union. 

There may be some who will deny that by the treat}'- 
making power, the government of the United States can 
cede one or more States or any part of a State to a foreign 
power. Those who claim that "a State once a State is 
always a State," will doubtless deny any proposition at war 



— 270 — 

i^itli this theory. The power, however, to acquire and to 
cede territory, is an attribute of sovereig^nty fully recog-nized 
by the civilized g-overnments of the world. John Quincy 
Adams declared, in a speech delivered by him in the House 
of Representatives, many years ag-o, that a State could con- 
stitutionally be ceded to a foreign power. If one State may 
be ceded, then two or more States, or any part of a State, 
may be ceded. In settling* the disputed boundary between 
Great Britain and the United States, Mr. Webster negotiated 
a treaty ceding to Great Britain part of the State of Maine, 
which the Senate of the United States ratified, and it became 
and is to-day the law of the land. If that treaty had ceded 
all the territory included within the limits of the State, save 
one hundred acres, would the families occupying the remain- 
ing territory have the right to assume the government of the 
State, and put the machinery of a State government in opera- 
tion, elect themselves to office, and send Senators and Repre- 
sentatives to Congress ? If " a State once a State is always 
a State," this right would be unquestionable, and they would 
assuredly be clothed with that power. It is said, if there be 
but TEN or even Two loyal citizens in any State which by the 
votes of a majority of its legal electors has, in the manner 
prescribed by law, abolished its State government, estab- 
lished a new and hostile government, and made war against 
the United States to maintain it that the two or ten citizens 
remaining loyal, or professing loyalty, are, by virtue thereof, 
invested with the entire power of the State government, as it 
existed before the rebellion; that, indeed, the old Constitution 
survives the action of the majority which has abolished it and 
adopted a new one; and that the two or ten loyal men may^ 
under it, elect and inaugurate officers from their own number,^ 
and thus, while assuming that the acts of the majority are 
null and void, hold within themselves and perpetuate the 
existence and government of the State. 

What wonder that we have had such blundering in Vir- 
ginia and Louisiana on this question of reconstruction, when 
we have loyal men claiming to be statesmen in the Senate 
and House of Representatives, misleading themselves and 
the country with such an extraordinary propos'ition as that 



— 271 — 

'which assumes that " a State once a State is alv/ays a State," 
and that ten men may set up and maintain a State g-overn- 
ment in a State, which half a million of men have voted to 
abolish. 

But I desire, more particularly, to call the attention of 
the House to the fourth proposition, that the constitutional 
relations of a State to the National Government may be ter- 
minated, by the action of its constituted authorities, sus- 
tained by a majority of its citizens, in abolishing" their State 
constitution, establishing" a new one, and making war upon 
the supreme government, to maintain the new government 
thus established. I claim, that a State, which is guilty of 
such action, divests itself of all rightful authority to partici- 
pate in and be part of the government which it is seeking to 
destroy, just as every citizen who commits treason, forfeits 
his right to citizenship, property and life. The territory 
constituting the State, is still within the national jurisdiction 
and constitutes part of the national territory; its citizens, 
though in rebellion, are still citizens of the United States, 
and under the Constitution the}- owe a paramount allegiance 
to the national government; but the State, having been con-, 
verted by the treason of its rulers and citizens into an engine 
of war for the destruction of the nation, has justly and legally 
forfeited all its rights as an organized political community, 
invested with part of the sovereig-nty of the nation. 

"Whatever part of national sovereignty was by the Con- 
stitution and laws of the United States vested in such State, 
lapsed by virtue of its treason and rebellion of its citizens, 
and remains in the supreme government. 

Gentlemen have asked, with an air of apparent gravity, 
"When did these States cease to exist? "Was it on the pas- 
sage of their secession ordinances? If not, at what precise 
period of time did they cease to be States, and get out of the 
Union?" I answer that the territory and people constituting" 
the State have not and cannot "get out of the Union," as 
gentlemen are pleased to term it; that is, they cannot with 
draw themselves and the territory of the State from the con- 
stitutional jurisdiction of the National Government, except 
by successful revolution; but when a majority of the electors 



272 — 



of any State, in compliance with the spirit and "forms of 
their org-anic or statute laws, chang-e their State Constitu- 
tutions and g-overnments, and renounce their obedience to the 
National Constitution, their State g-overnments cease from 
that very hour. Gentlemen must remember that this is not a 
rebellion on the part of the majority, or indeed any part of 
the people of the rebel States, ag-ainst the constituted au- 
thorities and former recog-nized g-overnments of those States, 
but a rebellion on the part of the constituted authorities, and 
a majority of the people of those States, ag-ainst the g-overn- 
ment of the United States. If it were a rebellion of a 
minority, or even of a majority of the people of those States, 
ag-ainst their old State g-overnment and constituted authori- 
ties, as well as a rebellion ag-ainst the National Government, 
the old State g-overnments would remain, if their Constitu- 
tions had been abolished, and their constituted authorities 
had remained loyal; but their State g-overnments would be in 
abeyance, while the rebel insurg-ents held possession of the 
State. The constitutions and g-overnments of all the rebel 
States, however, having- been chang-ed or abolished in the 
manner prescribed in the org-anic or statute laws of said 
States by the will of a constitutional majority of their 
qualified electors, surely no lawyer will claim that a leg-al 
State Constitution and g-overnment exists in any of those 
States, such as can be recog-nized by Cong-ress or any depart- 
ment of the National Government. When such a chang-e of 
their constitutions and g-overnments was effected, their con- 
stitutional relations to the National Government ceased. 
They then ceased to be States of this Union as political 
org-anizations, invested by the Constitution and laws of the 
United States with part of the g-overning- power of the 
republic, but the territory and people remain as before, 
leg-all}^ subject to the laws and Constitution of the United 
States. 

If this theory be not the true one, then all that the con- 
spirators in Congress from the rebel States needed to have 
done and all they need do in case of another rebellion, is to 
remain in the Senate and House, and insist that the States 
which they represent, through waging war ag-ainst the 



-273 — 

National Government to destroy it, are still States, endowed 
with part of the sovereign power of the countr}-, and that as 
representatives from these States, they have the constitutional 
rig-ht to retain their seats as part of the g-overning- power of 
the country. 

Sir, if the conspirators and rebel chiefs could have 
known that a doctrine so fatal as this to our very existence 
as a nation, would have been seriously maintained by loyal 
men in the midst of this great rebellion; if they could have 
known that men claiming to be statesmen, would assert as a 
principle that "a State once a State is always a State," 
and that the minority of its citizens had the constitutional 
right to send full delegations of Senators and Representa- 
tives to Congress, though a majority, with the constituted 
authorities of the State, were in rebellion against the' Na- 
tional Government; if they could have been made to believe 
that the Thirty-Seventh Congress would have insisted that 
this minority in any of the rebel States, without an organized 
civil government, recognized by Congress, had the right to 
fill these Halls with their Representatives, on condition of 
swearing fealty to the government, without regard to the 
number of theii constituency, so that they ranged anywhere 
from TEN to ONE or two hundred professedly lo3'al voters for 
each member 'of Congress: I say, if the conspirators and 
rebel chiefs could have anticipated all this, they would doubt- 
less have materiall}^ changed their programme, and every 
vacant chair in Congress would have been filled from the out- 
break of the rebellion to this hour, with the open or secret 
enemies of the government, all laboring for its destruction. 

Mr. Speaker, I know, and alas, we all know, too well, 
that Southern statesmen, for the past thirty years, have had 
good reason to be familiar with the stupidity of Northern 
Representatives in Congress; but, sir, I venture the assertion 
that no Southern man, in the maddest hour of his passionate 
contempt for the North, ever conceived that Northern men 
would be guilty of the stupidity of claiming to-day, that 
South Carolina, or any other rebel State, has a State Govern- 
ment in existence, which entitles it under the National Con- 
18 



— 274 — 

stitution to exercise part of the g-overning- power of this 
nation. Gentlemen may insist as long" and pertinaciously as 
they please, that States cannot dissolve their political rela- 
tions to the National Government, and that when they are 
once States, they are always States. The fact that States, 
with the approval of a majority of their citizens, have 
abolished their State Constitutions, renounced their alle- 
g-iance to the National Constitution, and made war upon the 
National Government to destroy it, is as notorious as the 
fact that our armies are eng-ag-ed in putting- down the rebel- 
lion. I hold that no act of rebellion and levying war on the 
part of the constituted authorities of a State, and no ordi- 
nance of secession passed by a State Legislature or a conven- 
tion in any State, with the approval of every elector in it, 
can leg-ally or constitutionally affect the rightful jurisdiction 
of the National Government over the people and territory of 
such State, but such ordinances of secession and acts of re- 
bellion and levying- war on the part of the constituted au- 
thorities of said State, sustained by a majority of its citi- 
zens, destroys, as a matter of fact, the political org-anization 
known and recog-nized as a State by the National Constitu- 
tion, and no State thus in rebellion can maintain constitu- 
tional relations to the National Government, until it is re- 
organized by the loyal people, subject to and in conformity 
with the Constitution and laws of the United States. Be- 
fore they are thus reorganized, and until Cong-ress recog- 
nizes them as States, and admits their Senators and Repre- 
sentatives, the g-overning- power heretofore lodged in them as 
political organizations, having-, by their acts of treason and 
rebellion, lapsed, remains in the people of the States which 
are faithful to the National Constitution. 

When I first advanced this theory in 1861, and again by 
the bill introduced by me in March, 1862, professedly loyal 
editors were not wanting- in my own State, who were so 
narrow-visioned as to charge me with endorsing- the doctrine 
of secession. Indeed, the Democratic minority of my own 
committee submitted two reports to this House at the first 
regular session of the last Congress, making substantially 
the same charge. It might be both amusinar and instructive 



— 275- 

at this time to review those reports, did time permit. I ask, 
g-entlemen, if there can be any g-reater contrast between the 
doctrine of secession and that which I then claimed and now 
claim, as rightfully belonging- to the supreme sovereign 
power of the nation. I held then, and hold now, that the 
government of the United States has the constitutional right 
to maintain its authority over every State, in defiance of 
State secession and State rebellion. The object of the bill 
introduced by me, more than two years ag^o, was to aid in en- 
forcing* this right. That is the object of the bill now before 
us. Gentlemen who can discover in this a recognition of the 
right of secession are evidently remarkable logicians, and 
should be known at once to the great masters, in order that 
their names may be embalmed with those who "were not 
born to die." 

The leading ideas embodied in the bill reported by me 
from the Committee on Territories, in the last Congress, and 
at which many gentlemen on the other side professed to be 
so greatly shocked, have all been adopted, as they know, as 
part of the policy of the government. Even the liberation of 
millions of slaves by proclamation has been accomplished, 
and many of these liberated slaves have had the plantations 
of their rebel masters given to them for homesteads in accord- 
ance with the poJicy indicated in that bill, and yet the nation 
" still lives." 

The National Government not only lives,but it is powerful 
enough to put down the rebellion and these rebel State gov- 
ernments. Having done this. Congress will doubtless find con- 
stitutional power to prescribe such conditions as shall keep 
them in the Union, and maintain its supreme authority over 
every citizen and every foot of the national territory, until 
such time as the loyal citizens of each State shall reconstuct 
new State governments, with republican Constitutions, and 
they shall have been recognized by Congress. 

I might fortify my position still further if it were neces- 
sary, by showing that both the executive and legislative 
branches of the government have, by their repeated acts, 
recognized the fact, that the old constitutional State govern- 
ments were destroyed or had been abolished in all the so- 



— 276 — 

called seceded States. There are many clever theories on 
this subject; one is that these State constitutions and g"Ov- 
ernments still exist, notwithstanding- they have been abolished 
by the action of their citizens and the new State governments 
are at war with the National Government. This leg-al crotchet 
possesses the minds of some gentlemen who insist that the 
old constitutions and governments still remain, because the 
action of the majority is illegal, and therefore null and void. 
To this I interpose the stern fact that a majority of the legal 
electors have abolished their State governments, and that 
there are no governors, judges or legislators recognized by 
the National Constitution in those States, that, therefore, 
those States, as political organizations, are dead. Gentlemen 
ma}' parade before us the ghosts of these dead States, and 
call them living and palpable, but they are no more States 
with constitutions and laws which can be recognized by Con- 
gress, than the artificial ghosts which are used to illustrate 
the drama are the ghosts of departed saints or sinners. The 
State organization, with its governors, judges and legis- 
lators, and its written constitution, is gone. Philosophically 
speaking, perhaps, as Mr. Brownson suggests in the January 
number of his Quarterl}', there must be, with every people 
sufficiently numerous and intelligent to maintain a republican 
government, an unwritten, before there can be a written con- 
stitution, and in this sense a constitution may be said to 
to exist in every State. But all the rebel States have written 
constitutions. They may not now faithfully reflect the un- 
written constitution of the people in the rebel States. "We 
shall see how that is when they come to act under the pro- 
visions of this bill, in reorganizing their State governments, 
and making another written constitution. If the action of 
the constituted authorities of the rebel States, sustained by 
a majority of their electors, in abolishing their State consti- 
tutions and governments, has not changed the legal relations 
of these States of the United States, then the National Gov- 
ernment has no legal cause of complaint against these States. 
The FACT is, however, despite all theories, that the constitu- 
tional relations of these States to the National Government 
are changed, and there is not a day passes in which this 



■277- 



stern fact is not in some way acknowledg-ed by every depart- 
ment and officer of the g-overnment. 

I need not elaborate the fifth proposition. It will not be 
denied that the majority of the leg-al electors of a State may 
refuse to maintain a State government, that they may refuse 
to send Senators and Representatives to Congress, and may 
prohibit the minority from exercising the functions of a State 
government by abolishing the State Constitution; by refusing 
themselves to establish, or permit others to establish, another 
in its stead. The government of the United States cannot 
compel the people of a State against their wishes to maintain 
and perform the functions of a State government under the 
Constitution. They cannot compel the people of a State to 
send Senators and Representatives to the national Congress, 
and the only alternative left to the Government of the 
United States, when State Constitutions are abolished, or the 
people refuse to maintain State governments, subject to the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, is for Congress, 
representing the supreme sovereignty of the nation, to pro- 
vide by law for the protection of the lives and property of its 
citizens, and for governing the territory formerly within the 
local jurisdiction of the State until such time as a constitu- 
tional State government can be formed and recognized by 
Congress. And, here, sir, I dismiss this part of my subject. 

Mr. Speaker, I do not claim that this bill is perfect. 
Under the circumstances, however, I believe it is the best we 
can get. I do not think it safe beyond question, to authorize 
the organization of State governments, when only one-tenth 
of the electors are loyal to the United States. I admit that 
this provision was in the bill, introduced by me in the early 
part of the present session. I incorporated it in the bill, to 
make it harmonize with the President's suggestion, and not 
because it had the sanction of my own judgment. As a 
member of the committee charged with the subject of pro- 
viding for the reorganization of constitutional State govern- 
ments by the loyal citizens in the rebel States, I have sought 
to secure the best bill I possibly could. It is not all I could 
desire, but I do not intend to offer any amendments to it, but 
if an amendment is offered, increasing the number of loyal 



•278- 



electors required to org-anize a State gfovernment, I shall feel 
obliged to vote for it. I believe the democratic idea the 
better one, that the majority and not the minority ought to 
be invested with the organization and government of a State. 
Certainly it is safer to entrust a State government to the 
maintenance of a majority than to one-tenth claiming to 
be loyal, while nine- tenths are openly disloyal. 

In answer to many objections which have been urged by 
distinguished gentlemen who have written me on the sub- 
ject of the ten per cent, basis, I will say, that the loyal one- 
tenth are to represent all the inhabitants, loyal and disloyal, 
in the State; that representation in Congress is not based upon 
the number of electors or loyal citizens in any State, but 
upon the whole number of inhabitants. Formerly in the 
South, three-fifths of all the slaves were included in their 
enumeration. Since the emancipation of the slaves, the 
three-fifths representation clause in the Constitution is practi- 
cally abolished, and each emancipated slave will hereafter be 
enumerated as an inhabitant. So that there is no injustice 
to the North, in allowing the old representation in Congress 
from the rebel States. That part of the population known 
as the Two-fifths free and slave, not counted in the enumera- 
tion, will now be added, and two-fifths of four millions will 
probably exceed the number of whites killed or driven from 
the Southern States. If we should undertake to apportion 
representatives in Congress from the several States upon the 
number of lo3^al electors, we should find, I fear, a number 
of districts in the North quite as disloyal as man};^ in the 
South. 

I believe that the safety of the government, and justice 
to loyal men, demand that we should put the entire authority 
of reconstructing new State governments in the rebel States 
into the hands of loyal men and none others. If it is deemed 
safe to entrust ten per cent, of the number of electors in each 
State in 1860, with this power and responsibility, so be it. 
If we invest them with this power, they must represent at 
the ballot-box, and in all the offices. State and National, the 
entire population of those States, loyal and disloyal, includ- 
ing all the colored inhabitants. 



— 279 — 

There are some other points in the bill, which I am pre- 
vented from noticing- for want of time. 

Mr. Speaker, if we would avoid all possible complica- 
tions, and the danger of another conspiracy' and rebellion, 
let us provide, before this Congress adjourns, by law, for the 
re-establishment of republican governments, by the loyal 
citizens, in the rebel States. A subject of so much impor- 
tance must not be left to the caprice or whim of a military 
commander. 

Mr. Speaker, suppose the doctrine be adopted, that "a 
State once a State is always a State," and that a small 
minority claiming- to be loyal, may at any time, and in any 
part of the State, occupied by our forces, call a mass con- 
vention of those favorable to org-anizing- a new State g-overn- 
ment, and when the convention is assembled, it selects a 
governor and State of&cers, and authorizes them to assume 
the functions of a State government, either under the old 
constitution, as was done in Virginia, or under a constitu- 
tion proclaimed by martial law, as was recently done in 
Louisiana, and that the governor thus chosen proceeds to 
issue his proclamation for the election of alegislature, and 
members thereof, in pursuance of said proclamation, are 
elected in some half dozen counties of the State, and convene 
and organize as the legislature of the State, and frame a 
law apportioning the State into congressional districts, and 
elect two United States Senators, and appoint a day upon 
which representatives are elected to Congress, and send their 
electoral vote here for President and Vice-President next 
winter, what action would this House take upon such a condi- 
tion of things? If five or six or more of the rebel States, in 
wliich we have a military force, should by the action of a 
few hundred men, thus organize and send their electoral vote 
here, and claim, as they would, that it should be counted, 
would this House consent to it? Suppose the electoral vote 
thus sent here should change the result of the Presidential 
election — and if counted elect a President in sympathy with 
the rebels; or suppose there were three Presidential candi- 
dates before the people, and that the votes of these assumed 
State organizations are so cast as to defeat an election by 



— 280 — 

the people, and make it necessary for the House to select the 
President, do not gentlemen know that the excitement which 
attends such a contingency would exceed in violence anything 
ever witnessed in this country, and that it might terminate 
in another rebellion? Are not gentlemen apprehensive that 
the conspirators of the South, driven to desperation, may 
undertake to accomplish their purpose by some such scheme 
as this? And is not our present unguarded and loose manner 
of reorganizing the rebel States well calculated to invite the 
rebels to just such an effort as I have suggested. I frankly 
confess that I am not entirely free from apprehension. 
Gentlemen may reply that we have a majority of the States 
as now represented in Congress, and that, therefore, there 
can be no danger. To this I rejoin, that every State so re- 
organized will have its Senators and Representatives here 
next winter, demanding admission, and if the executive 
department of the government has "recognized them as the 
true government of the State," there will be danger that a 
majority of this House would vote to admit them as members 
as they did in the last Congress. I desire, therefore, to 
guard against ahy possible contingency of the kind now. If 
we pass this bill, such a conspiracy cannot possibly succeed. 

I think I may safely speak for a large majority on this 
side of the House, when I declare that never by their 
authority or consent will a single electoral vote from any 
rebel State for President or Vice-President be counted in this 
Hall until that State shall have reorganized a State govern- 
ment, republican in form, and it has been recognized by 
Congress. In other words, before one of the so-called 
seceded States can be permitted to reassume any part of the 
governing power of the country, it must resume its constitu- 
tional relations to the National Government in conformity 
with and subject to the Constitution of the United States. 
The State governments which have been overthrown or 
destroyed, must be replaced by new governments, organized 
by the loyal people, and these new governments can only 
become constitutional governments when thus organized 
and recognized by Congress. 

This is certainly a point about which there ought to be 
no dispute among loyal men. I lay it down as a principle, 



— 231 — 

from which we ought not to depart, and which we cannot safely 
yield, that this whole question of reconstruction, whether 
under the war powers or the peace powers of the g-overnment, 
is a question confided by the Constitution expressly on Con- 
gress, and not to the President or to any general charged 
by him with the execution of military orders. I desire the 
House and the country to understand that by silence we 
sanction every assumption of doubtful constitutional power 
by any department or officer of the government. The domi- 
nant party in Congress ought to remember that it is making 
history, and will be held responsible in history for every 
dangerous precedent established with its consent. It ought 
not to be forgotten that every act of the executive and Con- 
gress becomes a precedent, to be revived hereafter if occasion 
offers, by those who shall then be charged with the adminis- 
tration of the government. I may be deemed over-anxious 
on this subject. But, sir, I know the power of example, and 
I much prefer that the President and every officer appointed 
by him shall do no act, unless clearly authorized by the Con- 
stitution, or by act of Congress. 

I prefer that before any doubtful constitutional power is 
exercised by the President or any officer of the government, 
the question shall be submitted to Congress for its decision 
and advice. I think we ought to demand the establishment 
of this rule, and insist on its strict observance by the Presi- 
dent and every department of the government. However 
ready we may be as partizans to apologize for or justify the 
assumption of doubtful constitutional power by those endowed 
by us with authority; as a representative, I am unwilling 
that the President of my own choice, or any officer of his 
appointment, should exercise any power which I would 
condemn if exercised by a political opponent. 

Mr. Speaker, I have the most unlimited confidence in the 
President. His patriotism no man can doubt who knows 
him as well as I do. That he does not intend to assume any 
of the prerogatives of Congress, I know. He is the last man 
in the world whom I would suspect of using unwarranted 
power for personal or selfish ends. And precisely here is the 
danger. We have no fear, because we who know him confide 
implicitly in his honesty of purpose, and believe that he 



— 282 — 

intends every act for the public good. But we ought not to 
forget, Mr. Speaker, that the precedents, which every 
department of this government are now making, may be used 
hereafter by ambitious and bad men for very different pur- 
poses. The safe way is the better way. And that is for 
every department of the government to keep strictly within 
the limits prescribed for it by the Constitution and laws of 
the United States. Many gentlemen seem to act as though 
the President, during the continuance of the war, could 
assume the entire war power of the government, and that 
our functions as Representatives were suspended until the 
close of the war, except to act as mere recording scribes. 
I protest against such an assumption, and against that 
silence which might be interpreted into an assent to it. It is 
true that the President of the United States is made by the 
Constitution, Commander-in-chief of the Army and Nav}-* 
and in that capacity, he may issue such orders to the of&cers 
and men as he may deem proper to accomplish the military 
object sought by Congress when declaring or recognizing 
war, but legally he can issue such orders for no other 
PURPOSE. In addition to this, every order must be in strict 
conformity with those rules and articles of war which have 
been or may be enacted by Congress, or with the well-known 
laws of war as recognized by civilized nations. The Presi- 
dent can make no new rule or article of war. That, sir, is a 
prerogative which belongs to Congress alone. The idea 
which I wish to impress upon the minds of gentlemen is this, 
that Congress, by the express terms of the Constitution, is 
invested with the war-making power of the nation. What- 
ever rules and articles of war it adopts must be enforced. 
Whatever it declares shall not be done, as an act of war, can- 
not properly be done. 

The President, in time of war, is authorized to do many 
acts by virtue of the power vested in him by the Constitution 
as Commander-in-chief, by the rules and articles of war 
enacted by Congress, and by the laws of war recognized by 
civilized nations, which he cannot do as a civil Chief 
Magistrate. As a civil Chief Magistrate, he cannot confis- 
cate property or emancipate slaves by proclamation. But in 



— 283 — 

time of war, by the laws of war, as Commander-in-Chief, he 
may confiscate enemies' property and emancipate all slaves. 
He may govern the country which he conquers by martial 
law, until Congress shall otherwise direct. But I have failed 
to find any power conferred by the Constitution, or by the 
rules and articles of war, or by the laws of war, authorizing- 
the President to establish, without the direction of Cong-ress, 
civil State g-overnments over conquered territory, or to re- 
org-anize new State governments, or to prescribe what kind 
of constitutions the loyal citizens should adopt, before he 
will recognize them as States restored to the Union. 

I believe this entire power is vested by the Constitution 
in Congress, and not in the President. Congress is not only the 
war-making but the law-making pow-er of the country. In 
time of war and in time of peace, Congress must exercise the 
sovereign power of the country, or there is no safety for the 
future of this nation and for republican institutions. 

Mr. Speaker, I do not object so much to some things 
which have been done, or the objects sought to be accom- 
plished, as I do to the manner in which they have been done. 
I do not intend, quietly, to permit the President or any head 
of a department, or any general in charge of an army, to as- 
sume the legislative functions of the government. A great 
question, such as the one before us, of the organization and 
restoration of States to civil life and power, with free con- 
stitutions, cannot safely be entrusted to any power but Con- 
gress. And, sir, that is where the Constitution has placed it. 
In addition to this, sir, I object to any effort at forestalling 
the action of Congress b}^ the military power. I object to 
precipitating great civil questions of the magnitude and im- 
portance of this upon the people of the rebel States, before 
the loyal resident citizens are prepared to meet them, and are 
properly organized to insure success. I object to it, because, 
whether the reconstructed State governments are satisfactory 
or not to the unconditional union men of those States or of 
Congress, as the representatives of the nation we are placed 
in a position where we must either refuse to recognize the 
States so reorganized, and recognized b}- the military author- 
ities in command as the constitutional governments of such 



— 284 — 

States, or we must quietly submit to the assumption of 
authority by the military power and by the executive depart- 
ment of the government, which belongs alone to Congress. 

Suppose the convention in Louisiana organize a govern- 
ment obnoxious to a majority of the unconditional Union men 
of that State, and either refuse to submit the constitution to 
the loyal people for their approval or rejection, or if it be 
submitted, it is submitted as the Kansas Lecompton consti- 
tution was submitted, and the openly disloyal and pro- 
slavery conservative elements, claiming to be loyal, are per- 
mitted to vote for it, thus securing a majority in its favor. 
If the general in command, and all the departments of the 
government, except Congress, treat the officers of a State 
government thus organized as the constitutional government, 
what shall Congress do? Submit to it and admit their 
Senators and Representatives, or reject them? I should like 
to ask, gentlemen, if Congress should refuse to admit them 
and refuse to recognize the new government as the constitu- 
tional government of the State, whether the electoral vote 
of that State, if sent here either under the old State organi- 
zation or under the new one, thus constituted and recognized, 
would by the authority of this body be counted, and the gov- 
erning power of the country, to that extent, be placed in the 
hands of a mere handful of men controlling a State govern- 
ment which we refuse to recognize? Suppose further, that 
all the departments of the government but this House should 
recognize the new organization, and that the Senate should 
admit its Senators as they have done in the case of Kast 
Virginia, while we refused admission to their members 
elected to this House, would the electoral vote be counted if 
sent here? Would this new government be the constitutional 
government of the State until recognized by Congress — I 
mean by the concurrent action of the Senate, House, and 
President? Gentlemen who examine this subject cannot fail 
to see the complications and difficulties in which we may be 
involved unless some uniform policy regarding the reorgan- 
ization of States is adopted by Congress and strictly observed 
by the executive department of the government. 
[Here the hammer fell.] 



— 285 — 

Mr. Grinneli.. I move that the g-entleman have leave 
to proceed. 

Leave was granted. 

Mr. Ashley. The President, in his late proclamation, 
says: 

"And I do further proclaim, declare and make known, 
that whenever, ^ in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Flor- 
ida, South Carolina and North Carolina, a number of persons 
not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such 
States at the Presidential election of the year of our Lord one 
thousand eig-ht hundred and sixty, having taken the oath 
AFORESAID, and not having- since violated it, and being- quali- 
ified voters under the election law of the State, existing- im- 
mediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding- 
all others, shall, re-establish a State government, which 
shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said 
oath, shall be recog-nized as the true g-overnment of the 
State." 

"Shall be recognized as the true government of the 
State " by whom? The fair interpretation of the language 
used is that the State, when organized in conformity with 
the provisions of the proclamation, will be recognized by the 
President. The country so understands the proclamation. 
And yet I can speak authoritatively, when I say that the 
President does not intend to do anything of the kind without 
the concurrence of Congress. If the rebel States still retain 
their political organizations under their old constitutions, 
neither the President nor any general in command can by 
proclamations or orders change those State constitutions. If 
the old State constitutions and governments of the rebel 
States are destroyed, then neither the President nor any gen- 
eral under him, can, with the military power, establish civil 
State governments with such constitutions as they may dic- 
tate, without the consent of Congress. 

The military power and the civil power must not be con- 
founded. Above all it must not be forgotten that Congress 
alone is clothed with the war power and the civil legislative 
power of the nation. 

Mr. Speaker, suppose the Union men, by unwise divisions 
and personal ambitions, are defeated in the coming Presiden- 
tial election, and by such division a President is elected by 



286 



the opposition. Would g"entlemen on this side of the House 
quietly sit here, and permit a pro-slavery President, with the 
entire military power of the country, and one-tenth of the 
local population of the rebel States, professing- to be loyal, to 
reorganize State governments, and recognize them as the 
constitutional governments of these States, without the con- 
sent of Congress? No, sir. From an hundred men, now on 
this floor, a protest would come in the name of an outraged 
people, protesting against such an usurpation of the prerog- 
atives of Congress, and against such a flagrant violation of 
the Constitution. Why would we all cry out with one voice, 
if such a scheme for reorganizing the rebel States was in 
process of enforcement by an opposition President? The 
answer is easy. We would not submit to it, because we 
would be certain that with such power in the hands of their 
President, they would re-establish slavery and the old slave 
State governments in every rebel State, and thus bring back 
many of the traitors to the vacant seats here. Of course, 
sir, we would all protest; and as I would protest- then, so I 
protest now, against the adoption of any policy by the 
executive or military departments of the government on this 
question of reconstruction, until it shall first have had the 
sanction of Congress. Sir, I want no precedent established 
by this administration, touching the exercise of doubtful con- 
stitutional power, which I would object to if adopted by an 
opposing administration. Whatever power I claim for an 
Executive of my own choice, I am willing to concede to 
another who is not my choice. 

Mr. Speaker, let us keep every department of the govern- 
ment strictly within its constitutional limits, and in the 
future we shall not be driven to the disgraceful necessity of 
apologizing for or repudiating our own acts, before we can 
with any show of propriety or fairness arraign those who, 
through following our precedents, are doing so for different 
purposes. 

Mr. Speaker, if a President may, because war exists, 
civil or foreign, exercise any of the powers conferred by the 
Constitution on Congress, whether relating to the civil or 
military administration of the government, an ambitious 



— 287 — 

and unscrupulous President can find pretext enough for pre- 
cipkating- the nation into either a foreign or civil war, as 
was done in the case of Mexico, and with the Mormons. 
Then following such precedents as we are establishing by 
our silence, the Executive could assume to exercise almost 
every function of the government under the plea of neces- 
sity, and the right conferred by the admitted war powers of 
the government. Suppose the pro-slavery States rights 
party of this country should elect a President and a majority 
of this House, this year, owing to causes such as I have sug- 
gested (which may Heaven forbid); and they should conspire, 
as it is not at all unlikely they would, to reinstate the old 
order of things, assume the confederate debt, re-enslave all 
persons emancipated by the President's Proclamation or by 
Congress, and restore all confiscated estates to their former 
owners, would they long want a pretext for continuing this 
war, or involving the country in another civil war, if there- 
by their President could assume unlimited power, and with 
the army and ten per cent, of the voting population, without . 
regard to its loyalty, revive the old State Constitutions, and 
obtain their recognition by the executive branch of govern- 
ment as the constitutional governments of these States, 
without the consent of Congress? 

I confess, sir, I believe there are thousands of men in the 
North to-day, who stand ready at any opportune moment to 
enter into just such a conspiracy. If gentlemen will recall 
what has transpired in this country since the days of Tyler, 
Calhoun and Texas annexation, especially during the adminis- 
trations of Polk, Pierce and Buchanan, they will not find it 
difficult in my judgment to reach the conclusion that either 
of these administrations, if in power in 1865, would cor- 
dially have entered into just such a conspiracy as I have 
delineated. Do gentlemen say that this is impossible? I 
answer, by repeating what I have said before to the people 
of my own, and indeed of every district in which I have 
spoken, that I fear an attempt will be made, if the pro- 
slavery party of this country elect a President of their pecu- 
liar faith, to accomplish all I have depicted, and the con- 
federate rebel debt will be the lever power employed for that 



— 288 — 

tinholj purpose. If they should succeed in an election, no 
man need predict what they will not attempt. The country 
has not yet forgotten how the Texas annexation scheme was 
bought through Congress, by the leaders of this pro-slavery 
rebellion. They had but ten millions of dollars in scrip to 
operate with, worth from five to seven cents on the dollar; 
annexation and assumption made them par. In this new 
political and financial scheme, the conspirators will have 
three or four thousand millions of dollars in confederate 
bonds, with which to effectuate their purposes. Sir, when I 
remember what infamous, God-defying acts, the American 
Congress, under the lead of the present pro-slavery rebels, 
has been guilty of, in days that are past, I shudder when I 
contemplate the terrible ordeal through which the nation, in 
its process of regeneration, must pass, after the close of the 
war. 

Mr. Speaker, I have already, in passing, referred to the 
action of General Banks in Louisiana. Let me call the 
attention of the House and the country to his unwarrantable 
and indefensible assumption of civil authority in that State. 
In the first place, against the protest, and in defiance of the 
well-known wishes of the only organization known to the 
countr}^ or recognized by the unconditional Union men of 
Louisiana, General Banks issues an order for an election on 
the 22d of February last, of State officers, under the old 
State organization and pro-slavery constitution. If the old 
pro-slavery constitution and State government of Louisiana 
are to be thus re-established and recognized in defiance of 
the wishes of the loyal men of that State and without the 
sanction of Congress, this House ought to understand it. 
For myself I enter my protest against any such assumption 
of civil authority by the military power. Let us look a little 
farther into the matter. After ordering an election for State 
ofB.cers under the old constitution, which, if acquiesced in 
by Congress, will legally revive the old order of things in 
that State, General Banks issues another order directing that 
an election shall be held for delegates to a convention, for 
the purpose of amending the constitution of the State so 



— 289 — 

that it may conform to something- — it is difficult to say 
what. The following- is his order upon the subject: 

"In order that the org-anic law of the State may be made 
to conform to the will of the people, and harmonize with the 
spirit of the age, as well as to maintain and preserve the 
ancient landmarks of civil and religious liberty, an election 
of delegates to a convention for the revision of the constitu- 
tion will be held on the first Monday of April, 1864." 

"Whence did General Banks derive authority to issue such 
an order? Certainly not from Congress, nor from the laws of 
war, as recog-nized by civilized nations, nor from any rule or 
article of war known to our military code. If the power to 
issue the order is not derived from either of these sources, 
then the action of General Banks is a most wanton and 
defenseless assumption of military power, as well as an out- 
rage upon the only organized body of men known and ad- 
mitted by all to be free State men. As a military commander 
in the service of the United States, he may g-overn a con- 
quered people by martial law until Congress or the people, in 
the exercise of loyal, popular sovereig-nty, recognize a civil 
government, subject to the Constitution of the United States, 
without interference or coercion from him by the military 
force under his command. But neither General Banks nor the 
Commander-in-Chief, can, by martial law, proclaim a consti- 
tution for the civil government of any State. General 
Banks, however, declares in this extraordinary proclamation? 
that "the fundament ai, law of Louisiana is martial law." 
If any gentleman can enlighten the House or the country 
about this matter, he will entitle himself to the lasting grati- 
tude of all loyal men. Will any gentleman tell me how 
"martial law" can become "the fundamental law" of any 
organized civil State government known to the Constitution 
of the United States? I hold that neither General Banks, 
nor any other general in command of a department, has 
authority to order an election for State officers in any of the 
rebel States, under any fundamental law, whether it be mar- 
tial law or civil law. Still less has he any show of power or 
excuse for ordering an election of delegates to a constitu- 
19 



— 290 — 

tional convention, if there is an existing- fundamental law in 
the State. 

If the State officers who have been elected by General 
Banks's orders assume the functions of civil g^overnment, they 
will undoubtedly be recognized as officers under the old State 
constitution of Louisiana, whatever General Banks may say 
about martial law as the fundamental law of the State. If 
they are not officers of the civil government of Louisiana 
then the late election was a farce, for martial law does not 
provide that the people, or any part of the people, over whom 
it is operating, shall, themselves, select the officers to adminis- 
ter and exercise it. 

I undertake to say, that if these recently elected State 
officers are installed into office and recognized by Congress, 
such recognition will legally re-establish the old State con-- 
stitution and slave code of Louisiana. In addition to this 
the State government, thus established and recognized by 
Congress, may legally refuse to submit to or recognize the 
validity of any new State constitution adopted by the con- 
vention ordered by General Banks to be elected in April, 
after the State officers elected under the old constitution are 
inaugurated and invested with the civil government of the 
State. They undoubtedly will refuse to recognize the action 
of that convention, unless it be in conformity with their 
wishes, because they can properlj'' claim that the old State 
constitution having been revived and recognized by their 
election and inauguration, it provides the manner in which 
it may be amended. In order to obtain an early recognition 
of the assumed State organization under martial law, the 
newly elected governor may, if he sees fit, order an election 
for members of the State Legislature and Congress instanter, 
and I shall not be surprised if we have Senators and Repre- 
sentatives applying here for admission from the government 
thus organized by the military pr wer, before we adjourn. If 
such should be the case and they are admitted before the 
action of the constitutional convention is submitted to the 
loyal people for their approval, and the present State officers 
accept and recognize that constitution if adopted by the 
people as the constitution of the State, these officers may, if 



— 291 — 

they choose, leg-ally disreg-ard the action of that convention, 
and remain under the old constitution. If they should do 
this, what remedy would be left to us? If Cong-ress should 
recog-nize this assumed State g"overnment, before the consti- 
tutional convention now ordered by General Banks to be 
elected should assemble, or before it had adopted and sub- 
mitted a constitution to the loyal electors of the State for 
their approval, its whole power under the newly elected offi- 
cers COULD and might be used to defeat the wishes of the 
free State men, and if desired by the present State officers 
this would be a better way of accomplishing- their purposes 
than by refusing- to accept the constitution formed by the 
convention and adopted by the people. I have no doubt that 
the officers of this assumed State government could, if they 
were recog-nized by Cong-ress, defeat the adoption of a free 
State constitution of Louisiana if they desired to do so. I 
do not say that they will attempt it, should Cong-ress recog- 
nize them, for I do not know them. I only say that they 
could easily do so, if they preferred the old constitution to 
the new one. * 

Gentlemen will readily see the necessity of avoiding- 
such complications — and all must agree that the safer and 
better way is to have new State constitutions adopted and 
approved by the loyal people and Congress before elections 
for State officers are ordered by any one, and before we 
admit either Senators or Representatives in Congress from 
any of the rebel States. 

I hope we will have no such difficulty in Louisiana as I 
have suggested. I have always had such a high apprecia- 
tion of the character and ability of General Banks, that I 
regret very much that I have felt it to be my duty to say 
what I have of his acts touching the reorganization of the 
State. I cannot, however, shut my eyes to the fact that the 
policy adopted by General Banks affords every inducement 
for the secret enemies of the government, by uniting with 
the conservative faction opposed to a free State, to brino* 
about just the condition of things I have described. I trust 
we are not to have in Louisiana a repetition of the Mis- 
souri troubles. 



— 292 — 

If General Banks, instead of ordering- an election for 
State officers under the old constitution of Louisiana, had 
listened to the free State men and ordered an election of 
deleg"ates to a convention to amend the old constitution of 
Louisiana, or to make a new one for the State, the loyal men 
of the nation mig^ht have tolerated such an unauthorized 
assumption of power on his part. As it is, loyal men are 
compelled to protest ag-ainst it, not only because of his exer- 
cise of power for which there is no law, and his disregard of 
the wishes of the free State men, but because of the diffi- 
culties and complications which a repetition of such acts in 
other States may bring- upon us. Here is v/hat the free 
State men of Louisiana say on this point : 

"Resolved, that this Free State General Committee, not 
relinquishing its judgment that the only true path to recon- 
struction is a convention to form a new constitution before 
any election for State officers; and not renouncing- its lawful 
claim to have slavery abolished immediately, without the 
dangers of any futile scheme of gradual emancipation; and 
not yielding its assent to the idea that the election of seven 
executive officers can, by proper use of term^, be styled the 
civil government of Louisiana; but, nevertheless, recogniz- 
ing- the patriotic duty of endeavoring to place in office men 
whose opinions are in harmony with the wants of Louisiana 
and the spirit of the age, will take part in the elections." 

The farce of an election was gone through with, and of 
course the men representing an organization whose loyalty 
never was questioned, were defeated, and the candidate of 
General Banks was elected. It could not well have been 
otherwise. . A military commander who announces that 

''MARTIAL LAW IS THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF THE StaTE," and 

that all must vote, would not find it very difficult to elect any 
one he might designate, especially when the aggregate vote 
did not exceed ten or eleven thousand, with three candidates 
in the field. Hahn's whole vote in the State, as claimed by 
his friends, is only 6,171, less than one-fourth of the vote of 
my congressional district. 

There are fifty-four parishes in the State, only twelve of 
which are under our control. 

Of the number who voted for Hahn, I have been credi- 
bly informed that over 1,000 were employed in the quarter- 



— 293 — 

master's department; about 550 are policemen in the city of 
New Orleans; city laborers 1,100, and other city officers 100; 
some 1,600 were soldiers claiming- to be citizens of Louisiana. 
The acting- mayor of New Orleans was removed by General 
Banks, and one appointed who could and would control the 
votes and influence of the 550 policemen, city laborers and 
city officers. With all the military power of the department 
to support Hahn; with the votes of all the g-overnment 
employees, the Louisiana soldiers and policemen, his ^entire 
vote in the twelve parishes is but 6,171, and yet this insig-- 
nificant vote is paraded before the country, and unblushingly 
called the voice of the entire State of Louisiana, which, in 
1860, gave a vote of over 50,000. Hahn had hardly as many 
votes in the entire State as Mrs. General Beauregard had 
sympathizing- rebel mourners in attendance upon her funeral 
in the city of New Orleans, in a day or two after this election. 

I have said nothing- of General Banks's orders and treat- 
ment of the freedmen of Louisiana. God knows I have no 
desire to say a word that I oug-ht not to say, but I cannot re- 
main silent when such irreg-ularities are being- committed. 
I am heartsick of this pandering- to rebels and slaveholders. 
"When General Butler was in command at New Orleans, no 
recog-nized free State man complained of his masterly admin- 
istration. The rebels and slaveholders, however, made day 
and night hideous with their howling. And General Butler 
was removed. Since General Banks has been in command, 
there has not been a rebel or pro-slavery complaint, but frank 
and manly protests come to us from well-known Union men, 
who have been tried as by fire and whose loyalty was never 
tainted by taking- an oath to support the rebel g-overnment 
or by voluntarily defending- and justifying it. This simple 
fact tells its own story, and I need not add another word. 

Mr. Speaker, let us see to it that there is no repetition 
of these acts by any other g-eneral in an attempt to org-anize 
a civil g-Qvernment for a rebel State, without the express 
authority of Congress. Enact this bill as a law, and you 
insure the liberation, reg-eneration and restoration of the 
South. Refuse to pass it, and the loyal men of the South 
are left to the mercy and caprice of military rulers. Professed 



— 294 — 

loyalists and open-throated rebels, who have been g"uilty of 
every crime, will conspire tog-ether to crush the free State 
men as they did in Missouri. The amnesty oath will be taken 
by thousands who will at once strike hands with perjurers, 
robbers, and murderers to destroy the men who have, from 
the first, been faithful to the Constitution and the Union. 

Mr. Speaker, the war ended, I feel confident that the 
wily enemy will attempt to regain by diplomacy much that 
he has lost by an appeal to arms. Therein, sir, as I appre- 
hend, lies our dang-er. The nation, anxious for peace, will 
eag"erly listen to the voice of the returning" prodigal, until 
like the song of the syren, it will, as of yore, lull many loyal 
but too confiding- men into a plausible but delusive security. 
Cunningly devised schemes of adjustment, declared by their 
authors to be "honorable to all parties," will be thrust upon 
us, and every form of sophistry employed to conceal their de- 
formities, and extol their merits. 

Let us meet these issues now, and meet them like men. 
Ivct us define clearly and unmistakably the policy of the g-ov- 
ernment on all questions touching the reconstruction and res- 
toration of the rebel States to the Union, and thus render 
forever impossible, all humiliating compromises. 

The truly loyal men of the North and the South w^U 
expect and demand this of us. The}^ will demand that their 
heroic sacrifices and suffering's shall not have been all in vain. 
And, sir, such a people have the rig-ht to make.such a demand. 
Their will must must be consulted — must be obeyed. I know 
that obedience to it will make freedom and justice the 
prominent elements of every newly organized State. 

Mr. Speaker, I believe I may safely say, that never in 
the history of any nation has there been grander exhibitions 
of patriotism and heroism, than have illustrated every battle- 
field of this terrible rebellion. Why, sir, when I g-o throug-h 
my own district and hear the simple and touching story told in 
almost every household, about fathers and sons, husbands 
and brothers, who have gone into the army that the republic 
might live, I am proud of my country, and thank God that I 
belong to such a heroic race. 

Mr. Speaker, I have witnessed, when aiding to fill our 
armies, many beautiful and imposing, thoug-h touchinsf and 



— 295 — 

heartrending- scenes. It is tlie same story of devotion and 
valor everywhere. The scene which I have in my mind's eye 
has its counterpart everywhere throug-hout the North. The 
picture is dag-uerreotyped upon the mind and soul of every 
man whose heart has been in this strug-g-le. In one of the 
ag"ricultural counties of my district, around the domestic 
hearth, before a blazing- fire, is g-athered a family g-roup. 
They have just returned from a war meeting-, and are en- 
^ag-ed in serious and thoughtful discussion. The question 
is, how many can be spared from home — how many can 
volunteer to g-o and fig-ht for their country? At leng-th, amid 
the contending- strug-g-les of patriotism, duty and affection, 
it is settled. Two brothers make the stern resolve. Quietly 
and methodically they prepare for their uncertain absence. 
When that is done, they enter their names as volunteers, and 
await, and that not long-, the orders which summon them to 
the field. The day of parting- comes. At the railroad station 
are g-athered fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends to 
bid these and other brave spirits farewell. The approaching- 
train is crowded with other volunteers who rend the air with 
-shouts as they catch a g-limpse of the new recruits — shouts 
which modify, perhaps, but cannot entirely repress the tears 
■and sobs of those who are now about to part, and, possibly, 
forever. The last shake of the hand is g-iven, the last kiss 
imprinted upon manly brows, the last farewell uttered, the 
train moves swiftly away, and this patriotic family, who have 
g-iven up their sons, turn to wend their steps to their now 
less cheerful home. Let us accompany them, and strive to 
realize their condition. Listen, as they g-ather around the 
evening- altar, to the prayer which from heart and lip ascends 
to the God of nations and of men — a prayer that the country 
may be saved, and that the precious lives of the beloved 
ones who have g-one to fight for it may be spared, and they, 
in due time, restored to their family and home. 

One phase in the scene we are contemplating- is over. 
Time has healed the poignancy of the sorrow which attended 
■the parting, and the household moves on in accustomed 
routine. Weeks have elapsed. A flash along the wires 
announces a battle in which the absent ones have partici- 



— 296 — 

pated: but, alas, it is too meagre to allay their anxiety. 
Away for miles, over a bad and frozen road, haste a com- 
pany on horseback to get fuller details from the papers. 
Behold with what trembling- anxiety the father glances 
along the column of killed and wounded to see if the name of 
either of his sons is there. And when the dread intelligence 
is found, go now to that bereaved family circle, and witness 
the more than Roman fortitude with which it is accepted, 
and tell me, in what former period of human history, the 
world has afforded a more exalted exhibition of valor and 
patriotism. Sir, these are common scenes. 

Thousands of homes thus bereft have uttered no com- 
plaint, but have sent forth other sons to bleed and die, per- 
haps, or perish by disease, in some future campaign of this 
dreadful struggle. Nor has the voice of complaint yet 
reached us from the battlefield — from the hospital, or from 
the horrible dens of Libby Prison or Belle Island, tenfold 
worse than either. Our fellow-citizens have only asked that 
the war might be prosecuted with vigor, until the rebellion 
was effectually broken, and a triumphant peace was achieved. 

At such a time, amid such scenes, and in the presence of 
such a people, how indefensible, how criminal, is all personal 
and partisan strife. Sir, when I witness, as I must, wherever 
I go, such scenes as I have so poorly delineated, my heart is 
filled with the deepest sympathy and sorrow, and I involun- 
tarily ask myself what there is, that can ever compensate for 
all this affliction, this endurance and this self-sacrifice. 
There is but a single answer. Nothing, absolutely nothing, 
but the entire regeneration of the Republic, by making 
" Liberty and Union one and inseparable." That the earn- 
est men of this great nation will accomplish this work, I 
have never doubted. Tome it is the simple logic of the con- 
test. I have believed from the first that it must come, 
because I have believed that Providence would bring to 
naught the councils of the wicked and the crafty. Indeed I 
contemplate the future of this struggle with rapture. The 
clouds which to the eyes of many have darkened our political 
horizon, for three years have all had their silver linings for 
me. No hour has been dark enough to cause me to feel one 



— 297 — 

throb or to utter one wail of despair. My hope has been 
that justice would at last triumph, and the prog-ress we are 
making" assures me that it will. I advocated from the first 
the emancipation of all slaves, because I believed ideas were 
more formidable than armies, justice more powerful than 
prejudice, and truth a weapon mig"htier than the sword. 
Thank God, that as a nation and people, after three years of 
war and mourning- we are beg-inning- to comprehend our duty, 
^nd to feel in this life-strug-gle for national existence, that 

"The laws of chang-eless justice bind 
Oppressor and oppressed. 
And close as sin and suffering" joined 
We march to Fate — abreast!" 

I have believed that as a nation we should g-row strong"er 
and g"ain victories only as we become manl^^ and just, and 
that at last liberty would emerg-e triumphant from the con- 
flict, changing" constitutions, customs, and laws, to meet the 
requirements of a hig-her and better civilization, and that 
thus emerging, she would vivify by her magic touch every 
desolate waste, and cause to bloom every spot consecrated by 
the blood of her fallen sons. Anj^thing short of this would 
be hollow mockery; with it accomplished, 

"Who will mourn that in these dark days 
His lot is cast? 

God's hand within the shadow lays, 
The stones whereon His gates of praise 
Shall rise at last. 



Turn and o'erturn, O, outstretched Hand, 

Nor stint, nor sta.j] 

The years have never dropped their sand 

On mortal issues vast and grand. 

As ours to-day." 



HON. J. M. ASHLEY 
Renominated by Acclamation for Congress 



BY THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CONVENTION AT TOLEDO, 
MAY 24th, 1864. 



Hon. William Sheffield, of Henry County, was president. 
S. B. Price and J. C. Swan were secretaries. 

The platform reported by the committee on resolutions 
w^as unanimously adopted. 

The resolution endorsing" Mr. Ashley reads thus : 

Resolved, That we cordially approve and endorse the 
course pursued in Cong-ress by our able and fearless Repre- 
sentative, Hon. James M. Ashley, whose zeal, fidelity and 
patriotism entitle him to the profound respect and admira- 
tion of a constituency he has so ably and faithfully repre- 
sented. 

The committee appeared with Mr. Ashley, and after 
"the applause had subsided he was introduced to the conven- 
tion by the president, and spoke as follows: 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: 
In the storm of personal and political conflict, I have a will of 
iron. Surrounded as I am to-day, and in the midst of such a 
scene, I am as a child whose heart is overflowing" to its bene- 
factor with thankfulness and g-ratitude. Unyielding* as you 
know I am when confronting- the wrong-, and confident in my 
streng-th when defending- the unpopular cause of the poor 
and the lowly ag-ainst the oppressions of the rich and the 
powerful, I somehow feel unmanned, as the world has it, in 
appearing- before you now. Thoug-h welcomed as I am by 
cheers and these unmistakable manifestations of your ap- 
proval and respect, my lips are tremulous with the emotions 

(298) 



— 299 — 

of my heart and the thoug-hts which crowd upon me cannot 
find fitting- utterance in words. I wish I could command 
lang-uag-e that would truly dag-uerreotype upon your hearts 
the emotions of my own, so that I might suitably acknowl- 
edge the honor of this nomination, and thank you for the 
compliment of this generous and enthusiastic reception. 

Gentlemen, if any one of you stood where I stand to-day, 
and remembered as I must remember the terrible ordeai, 
through which I have passed, and then contemplate the 
events of this hour, and look forward as I do with hope to 
the coming verdict of the loyal people of this District in 
October, you would feel, I am sure, an unutterable satisfac- 
tion in such a triumph. 

I accept, gentlemen, with a g-ratitude which I shall carry 
with me through life, the nomination you have just tendered 
me, and thank you with a full heart for this most cordial 
welcome. To me it is an earnest of your individual esteem 
and confidence, and is the best assurance I can have that my 
course in Congress is fully approved by the free Union men 
•of this District whom you represent. 

I have just read the platform you have unanimously 
adopted, aiid approve it fully, and without qualification. 

Though not necessary, I repeat what I expressed in my 
recently published letter to my honorable friend from Wood, 
that, if this convention had nominated any other citizen than 
myself, he should have received my cordial support both on 
the stump and at the ballot-box. Indeed, I would have per- 
mitted no man to have given more time and labor to secure 
his triumphant election than I would have given. 

I hope every loyal man in the District is sufficiently im- 
pressed with the importance and necessity of united action 
in the impending contest. National, State and District, and 
that upon this point I need not add another word. 

Gentlemen: You who have known me longest and best, 
jou who know something of my inner life, and with what 
devotion I have consecrated the best years of that life to the 
advocacy of emancipation, a principle which to-day makes 
the salvation of the nation possible, and binds all loyal men 
together in its support; you, who have known how, with 



— 300 — 

unfaltering" faith, I have maintained the great democratic 
idea of man's equality before the law, and who know how I 
have urg'ed with a diligence which has never tired, and a 
perseverance which has never faltered, the adoption of these 
principles by the present administration, you, I say, who 
know all this, and have faithfully stood by me, can sympa- 
thize with and appreciate something- of the exultation and 
joy I feel at the approaching- triumph of such a cause. 

Thank God, the long- weary night of three years is 
almost gone; the morning light is breaking; the North is at 
last in earnest, and in the inspiring and beautiful words of 
our Quaker poet, we can all shout with exultant hearts: 

" Now joy and thanks for evermore, 

The weary night has well nigh passed; 
The slumbers of the North are o'er — 
The giant stands erect at last!" 
[Loud applause.] 

Mr. President, it is now ten years since a little band of 
anti-slavery men in Northern Ohio met at Maumee City in 
response to a call drawn up by me, for a general conference. 
The theme of my speech then, was the same as now. I then 
said, "that justice demanded the emancipation of every slave 
within the limits of the republic, and that the true demo- 
cratic idea recognized liberty as the birthright of the human 
race." This theme has constituted the major part of nearly 
all my speeches from that day to this. With what fidelity I 
have followed these democratic ideas you all know. In 
whatever path they have logically led me, I have devoutly 
gone, never hesitating, never faltering, never doubting. No 
motive of personal or political ambition has swayed me for 
a moment to the right or to the left. Refusing to resort to 
the tricks of the mere politician, or to assume the non- 
committal position of the demagogue, as I might have done, 
either by remaining silent or professing to have no opinions 
on this subject, I have never for an instant yielded to the das- 
tardly and intolerant pro-slavery spirit which pervaded the 
whole nation at the outbreak of the war, but became firmer 



— 301 — 

and more defiant as the attacks of the enemy became more 
malig-nant and unscrupulous. I have clung- to these ideas 
because I believe principles should be followed before men, 
and that truth was strong-er than any party. From the first 
these ideas have been the cardinal points of my political 
faith, and they shall remain the main plank in my platform 
until this great battle is ended in the complete triumph of 
freedom by the liberation of the last slave in the United 
States. 

Mr. President, it is said, and I believe it to be true, that 
all sacrifices made either by individuals or nations in main- 
taining g-reat principles, bring- with them their own compen- 
sations; and surely as good and bad acts have their rewards, 
both here and hereafter, so surely shall the defender of the 
right be compensated for all his trials. I have not been 
unmindful of this great truth while battling for the anti- 
slavery cause, and I have not forgotten that which history 
has taught the world for more than two thousand years, that 
wherever a man came pleading for an unpopular refcfrm, even 
though the cause he pleaded was admitted to be just, he has ^ 
always been treated and stoned as a prophet. I have ac- 
cepted the slanderous scourging to which I have been sub- 
jected, philosophically, because, confident that if true to the 
great cause I have espoused, the very stones cast at me would 
one day be made into m}' monument, and that my slanderers 
would vilify me into a better fame. 

In 1861, when I demanded emancipation in the name of 
justice, because believing as a nation we could not call upon 
a just God to aid us in this great struggle unless we did 
justly, how many men were there in this District who were 
eager to condemn, and did condemn me unsparingly, and yet 
how many of these men are ready to applaud me now? 

It has ever been thus the world over. Providence com- 
pels all men sooner or later, to testify to the "almighty 
power and force of truth." Because grounded in this faith I 
have never faltered. Without it, no man can withstand the 
fury of his fellows. With it, no earthly power can shake 
him from his purpose. 



— 303 — 

I do not believe any man can ever be truly great, or be- 
come a successful leader in any moral movement or noble 
enterprise who does not recog-nize the creative agency and 
directing- power of an all-wise Providence. In my opinion, 
if our soldiers and statesmen had not been blessed with this 
simple and sublime faith, in the dark days throug-h which as 
a nation we have passed, they could never have overcome the 
difi&culties and dang-ers which have beset us at almost every 
step in the Cabinet and in Congress, and on the tented field. 
However unworthy some may think me, and unworthy though 
I may be, I nevertheless have believed, and now believe, that 
under God, I have had my allotted duty to perform in this 
great strug-g-le for national life, and I have attempted to do 
that duty as faithfully and devotedly as ever pilg-rim who 
sought the sacred shrine. 

But for the men who maintained in the council chambers 
of the nation and on the battlefield, the great principles to 
which I have referred, this nation would have been lost. 
The time had come in our history when kight made might, 
and when freedom could take no step backwards without 
sealing the doom of the republic. Believing this with all 
my heart, I have fought in the ranks with thousands of 
others this great battle of freedom as I would fight for my 
life, and thank God we have triumphed — triumphed, despite 
hesitating cabinets, grave-digging generals, timid politi- 
cians and time-serving editors — triumphed because the anti- 
slavery men of this nation, with the rank and file of our 
heroic and brave army, comprehending the logic of the con- 
test, have after a desperate struggle made this, as it should 
have been from the first, a war for liberty instead of a war 
for slavery. All our efforts would have been vain and worse 
than vain if our gallant soldiers had not espoused our princi- 
ples, and thus caused our army to become the liberating 
army of the republic, fighting in the name of God of Jus- 
tice for the establishment of universal liberty. At last the 
hour has come when as a nation we may truthfully and 
reverently say — 



— 303 — 



" God of nations, Sovereig-n Lord, 
In Thy dread name we draw tlie sword; 
We lift the starry flag- on hig-h, 
That fills with lig-ht our stormy sky. 

"No more its flaming- emblems wave 
To bar from hope the trembling- slave; 
No more its radiant g-lories shine 
To blast with woe one child of Thine." 

[Applause.] 

All honor to the noble men of our' victorious armies, 
who bear aloft and defend that g-lorious banner! The nation. 
can never compensate them for their trials and sufferings, but 
history shall weave for them a more unfading- g-arland than 
ever encircled the diadem of the Caesars. If we are but 
faithful to ourselves and sustain the soldier by our united 
action in the councils of the nation and at the ballot-box in 
support of the regular Union nominations, National, State, 
District and County, the soldier will maintain our country's 
cause on the battlefield and crown his victories with a last- 
ing- and honorable peace, a peace that shall rc-unite the 
republic in homog-eneous unity with a free Constitution 
and make it the freest, the mig-htiest and most glorious of 
all the nations of earth. When that golden hour shall come 
and freedom and justice shall be established within all our 
borders, then may the liberal statesmen of the new era of 
the republic appeal to impartial history for a vindication of 
their acts, and wait for 

"Time to test 
Of the free soul'd and the slavish. 
Which fulfills life's mission best." 

In this hope and with this faith, strengthened by your 
generous endorsement of to-day, I consecrate anew all my 
powers for the great work which the future has in store for 
the TRUE American statesman. 



— 304 — 

Thanking- you, g-entlemen, again and again for the honor 
of this nomination, permit me in conclusion to pledge you as 
on former occasions, "that by the blessing of heaven, the 
standard of liberty and Union which you have this day com- 
mitted to my care and defense shall never be deserted or dis- 
honored while* in my keeping." 

[At the conclusion of his speech the convention adjourned 
with cheers for the nominee.] 



TO THE OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS OF THE 
UNION ARMY 



FROM the; tenth congressional district. 



Indebted to you for the position I shall occupy in the 
Thirty-ninth Cong-ress of the United States, I cannot permit 
the occasion to pass without thanking- you with a full heart 
for the very g-enerous support you gave me at the recent 
election, and to acknowledg"e on behalf of the loyal men of 
the District, and many even beyond the limits of the District 
and State, the gratitude they feel at the unanimity with 
which you vindicated the Union cause at the ballot-box, de- 
spite combinations the most unnatural and extraordinary 
efforts from a quarter the most unexpected. 

Private letters assure me that most of you who are in the 
field under General Sherman voted while on the march, and 
some of you while skirmishing* with the enemy. 

Many on detached duty, g-uarding" exposed points or on 
picket, doubtless thoug-ht the hours long- while waiting- the 
coming" of their comrades who should relieve them from duty, 

Letter from Hon. J. C. Dancy, A. M., Wilmington, N. C. 
From an examination of the Tribune Almanac I learn that Mr. Ashley's congres- 
sional district has always been a close one. In 18S8 his majority was only 552, when he ran 
over one hundred ahead of the State ticket. In 1860 his majority over General Steed- 
man was 1,204. In 1864 General Rice was Mr. Ashley's competitor, and had a majority 
over him on the home vote. The legislature had provided that the soldiers from the 
State in the field should have the right to vote, and this letter discloses the fact that 
the soldiers at the front elected Mr. Ashley. Recognizing his indebtedness to them 
for his election, he addressed them a manly letter. We regard it as worthy of presen- 
tation, for its patriotic sentiments and because it marks an important historic fact. 

J. C. Dancy. 

20 (305) 



— 306 — 

in order that they too might vote, while hundreds who were 
sick, maimed and weary in hospitals did not forget the day 
with its opportunities and responsibilities, but watched anx- 
iously for the hour to come in which they also should be per- 
mitted to unite with their more fortunate brothers who were 
in the field, in voting to maintain the cause for which they 
were suffering and sacrificing so much. Thus, on the second 
Tuesday of October, from the banks of the James, the Appo- 
mattox and the Potomac, from Vicksburg up the Tennessee, 
and over the mountains of Georgia to Atlanta, from Kentucky 
to South Carolina, and in hospitals thousands of miles apart, 
the Union soldiers of Ohio from the Tenth Congressional 
District made up a verdict which cannot be forgotten. You 
have thus proven to the world your constancy and devotion 
to the Union, that you know how to fight the enemy at home 
with ballots as well as fight the enemy in front with bullets. 
The verdict which you then made up in favor of the Union 
cause, and its recognized representatives, like your heroic 
deeds on many a well-fought battlefield, will be recorded by 
the iron pen of history, on monuments which will endure 
forever, 

I count it a greater honor to be elected by the votes of 
the brave men who have faced, as you have, the enemy, and 
vindicated their devotion to the Union, than to receive the 
support of PROFESSED Union men, who under any pretext, 
or for any cause, wocild form o,pen or secret combinations 
with the leaders of a party known to be hostile to the best 
interest of th-e country, and at war with the leading political 
ideas which bind the Union party together, from Maine to 
California. 

The day after our State election I went to Michigan, 
and then to the State of New York, to labor for the success 
of our cause and its chosen representatives. While in the 
western part of the latter State, a telegram was put into my 
hand, just as I was going on the stand to speak, advising 
me of the vote of the regiments in front of and near Atlanta, 
and, although the result was not wholly unexpected — indeed, 
I may say, was confidently anticipated by me — I cannot 
with pen convey to you the deep emotions I felt when the 



— 307-- 

announcement came thus authoritatively, and my expecta- 
tions were more than realized. I would that I could clothe 
in lang-uag-e the thoug-hts which then came over me, and 
welled up from my heart to my lips in blessing-s on the head 
of every soldier in hospital or on picket, on the march or in 
camp, in battle or in prison. 

Many of 3'ou supported me before you went into the 
army. You have ag-ain entrusted me at a most important 
crisis in our history, and I am all the more thankful for this 
manifestation of your confidence, because I desire to complete 
the congressional record which I have beg^un, on the g-reat 
questions that are yet to be passed upon by the nation. In 
addition to this, I reg-ard myself as charg-ed by your recent 
vote with your special interests. For your g-enerous support 
I can only promise fidelity to our cause, and in the future, 
as in the past, continued devotion to your interests. Never 
since the war broke out has an officer or soldier, or a soldier's 
family, called on me in vain, if in my power to secure what 
they asked. Whether in hospitals, in the field or in prison; 
whether for promotion, and a recognition of meritorious 
services, or to be relieved from trouble, I have ever been 
ready and but too glad, when an opportunity offered which 
would enable me to serve either officers or men, as hundreds 
at home and in the army can testify. My highest ambition 
has been and shall be to serve you and aid you in saving the 
country. If I have, or shall contribute anything to that end, 
either by my counsels or my votes, I will be amply rewarded. 
But, whatever may betide, I must ever co-operate with, and, 
if need be, fall with the heroic defenders of my country. 

Whatever my future, be it prosperous or adverse, I shall 
ever remember with pride and gratitude, the vote given me 
by the Union soldiers from the Tenth Congressional Dis- 
trict of Ohio, during the great national struggle of 1864. 

Unable to answer by private letter the numerous com- 
munications which I have received from officers and men, in 
reference to my election, I adopt this mode of answering and 
thanking you for the deep interest manifested, and to assure 
you that I shall ever cherish, as among the most pleasing 
recollections of my life, the fidelity with which you stood by 



— 308 — 

me, and the very flattering- manner in which many of you 
have been pleased to refer to my congressional record, and in 
which all have conveyed to me the renewed assurance of their 
esteem and regard. 

As the nation and the liberty-loving men of the world 
cannot forget the wondrous deeds of heroism and daring" 
which have marked the triumph of the Union soldiers from 
every State on every battlefield, in defense of the nation's 
life, so shall all loyal men cherish their memories in g-rateful 
remembrance for the additional victory they have enabled 
us to achieve at the ballot-box in the re-election of Abraham 
Lincoln and all Union candidates, whether for g-overnors, 
Congress or minor of&cers whom their votes have saved from 
defeat by the opponents of the g^overnment at home. 

May God bless all Union soldiers, and 

''While our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed, 
Keep us to every sweet remembrance true; 
Till from this blood-red sunset springs, new born, 
Our nation's second morn." 

Truly your friend, 

J. M. ASHI.EY, 

Toledo, Nov. 14, 1864. 



THE ASHLEY BANQUET AT THE OLIVER 
HOUSE, NOVEMBER. 1864. 



FROM the; TOLEDO COMMERCIAL 



After the repast, Honorable William Sheffield, of Na- 
poleon, president of the evening-, called the assemblag-e to 
order, when congratulatory and complimentary letters were 
read from Honorable Charles Sumner, Salmon P. Chase, 
Governor Austin Blair of Michigan, Honorable Daniel S. 
Dickinson of New York, and others. 

The following are the letters from Governor Chase and 
Senator Sumner: 

FROM HON. SALMON P. CHASE. 

Cincinnati, November 14, 1864. 

Dear Sir: It is with real regret that I find myself 
unable to accept the invitation of the Union men of the 
Tenth Congressional District, to meet them at the entertain- 
ment to be given to their able and faithful Representative, 
General Ashley. 

It has been my privilege for many years to rank him 
among my true and faithful friends; but it is not alone, or 
chiefly as a friend, that I rejoice in his re-election. 

During his whole service in Congress, he has never 
wavered or halted in his devotion to Union and Freedom. 
His vote has never been separated from his duty. To him, 
as chairman of the important Committee on Territories, 
more than to any other man, do we owe the consecration of 
all the new States to Liberty by irrepealable provisions of 
fundamental law. 

(309) 



— 310 — 

These, and such as these, are his titles to the confidence 
and to the esteem and affection of his constituents. Let them 
be assured that the loyal people of the country partake their 
sentiments. 

Very truly yours, 
George R. Haynes, Esq. S. P. Chase. 



FROM HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 

Boston, November 8, 1864. 

Dear Sir: It \/ill not be in my power to unite in the 
banquet which you propose in honor of the re-election of your 
most faithful Representativ3. 

I know Mr. Ashley well and honor him much. He has 
been firm when others have hesit:;ted, and from an early day 
saw the secret of war, and I may add also, the secret of vic- 
tory. 

In questions of statesmanship, which will soon supersede 
all military quec,tions, he has already g-iven assurance of prac- 
tical wisdom. His various indcfatig-able labors and his elab- 
orate speech on "Reconstruction," shows that he sees well 
what is to be done in order to place peace and liberty under 
irresistible safeguards. 

For myself, I have no hesitation in saying- that, next to 
the rebellion itself, I most deprecate premature State g-overn- 
ments in rebel States. Such g-overnments will be a source of 
sorrow and weakness incalculable. But I am sure that your 
Representative will fail in no effort to prevent such a calam- 
ity. 

Th^re is also the amendment to the Constitution, prohib- 
iting" slavery throu^rhoitt the United States. Nobody has 
done more for it, practically, than your Representative. 

Accept my tlianks for the invitation with which you 
have honored me, and believe me, dear sir, 

Faithfully yours, 
George R. Haynes, Esq. Charles Sumner. 



Rounds of enthusiastic applause frequently interrupted 
the reading" of these and tlie other lettcr^^. 



— 311 — 

After the reading- of the letters was concluded, the fol- 
lowing- sentiment, proposed by Honorable Daniel S. Dickin- 
son in his letter, was again read: 

"Honorable James M. Ashley, the soldier's honored and 
favored Representative. New York unites with Ohio and the 
District he so ably represents, in paying tribute to his fidelity 
and firmness in the cause of resisting rebellion." 

In response to calls from all parts of the hall, Mr. 
Ashley spoke as follows: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: We meet to-night to exchange 
congratulations and rejoice over the triumphant re-election 
of Abraham Lincoln, and all true representatives of the 
Union cause. 

I am deeply indebted to the kind friends who have pre- 
pared this agreeable entertainment, and made it possible for 
me to meet at this social banquet to-night, so many of the 
true Union men and women of my District. My friends, I 
never was more at a loss than now for words with which to 
express the joy I feel at our wonderful national triumph. 

In the midst of this terrible civil war, a great moral 
battle has been fought at the ballot-box, such as the world 
has never witnessed. A victory has been achieved, the im- 
portance of which no man can over-estimate. On our part 
the issues were fairly presented, ably discussed, and heroic- 
ally fought out. Never did men fight better than the men 
who fought under our banner, and defended the ideas for 
which we battled. Good men were everywhere in earnest; 
bad men everywhere desperate. The stake for which we 
fonght was national existence and the liberty of the human 
race. In this sign we conquered. [Applause.] 

Experience has taught us, since the rebellion, that a well- 
organized party, with Truth for its weapon and Union bal- 
lots for its bullets, is as necessary for the ultimate triumph 
of the nation's cause, as a well-disciplined army in the field, 
equipped with all the death-dealing implements of war. 
"Without the triumph of the Union party at home, the Union 
army could not exist in the field. Therefore, let every loyal 
man unite to maintain the only part}-- which is true to free- 



— 312 — 

dom, and pledg-ed to maintain the army and preserve the 
Union. [Applause.] 

It is rig"ht and proper that we should rejoice over the 
great victory which, as a nation, we have achieved by the 
joint efforts of the Union soldiers in the liberating" army and 
the faithful Union men at home. We can to-nig-ht truthfully 
cong"ratulate each other, on a victory which means some- 
thing-; a victory which the world can understand; a victory 
which proclaims with trumpet tong-ue "liberty throughout 

ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF"; a vic- 
tory which sends forth the glad tidings which shall give, 
great joy to every slave in the United States, and to the 
lovers of freedom in every land; a victory which declares to 
the rebels and their Northern allies that the integrity of the 
Union, the acknowledged supremacy of the national Consti- 
tution, and the abandonment of slavery, are our only condi- 
tions of peace. [Applause.] 

As every one present responds with heart and lip to the 
words which I now utter, so let their spirit and the inspira- 
tion which fires our hearts be caught up and sounded through- 
out the land, until they re-echo through every valley and 
over mountain, and cause the whole people, soldiers and 
citizens alike, to join in the grand anthem "Glory to God 
IN THE Highest, on earth peace to good-willing men," 
I say "peace to good-willing men" because I believe they 
are the only men who can have, or who ought to have 
"peace on earth," and because I believe that is the correct 
rendering of the passage quoted. [Applause.] 

Though I am, and from the first have been, for the war, 
and war in earnest, I am for peace also; I long for peace; not 
a peace which comes through knavish schemes, not a peace 
made over the grave of Liberty, nor yet a peace such as we 
can at any moment secure by a cowardly surrender to the 
demands of traitors and rebels; but 

" For the peace which rings out from the cannon's throat. 
And the suasion of shot and shell, 
Till rebellion's spirit is trampled down, 
To the depths of its kindred hell. 



— 313 — 

*'For the peace which shall wash out the leprous staiti 
Of our^lavery, foul and grim, 
And shall sunder the fetters which creak and clank 
On the downtrodden black man's limb." 

[Applause.] 

I do not rejoice, fellow-citizens, merely because we have 
obtained a victory over our political opponents, or because, 
despite trickery and fraud and base insensibility, I have been 
individually successful in my late cong-ressional canvass. I 
rejoice rather because our triumph dates a new epoch in our 
history as a nation, and perpetuates the liberties and nation- 
ality of a great people. [Applause.] 

I know, that as the world goes, success is the god of to- 
day, but as all thoughtful men know, "Truth is the god of 
eternity." I would not give a fig for our success, and would 
not rejoice over our victory, if I did not know it was obtained 
by the triumph of Truth and Justice; for as it ever hath 
been, so shall it ever be, 

"Truth's enemy wins a defeat with victory." 

[Applause.] 

In the triumph of the Republican Union party. Truth, 
Justice, Liberty, Nationality, triumphed. The fiat has gone 
forth; the verdict of the Union soldiers and Union electors at 
the ballot-box is, that the nation shall live, and that slavery 
shall die. [Applause.] 

Who shall estimate the importance of this victory? 
"What thoughts or words shall I employ to impress its gran- 
deur upon you? By what standard shall we measure it, so as 
to estimate its worth to us, and its value to the human race? 
[Applause.] 

A victory of such moral worth as this, Providence grants 
to mankind but once in a century. What a grand, heroic 
age in which to live. What a cause to battle for, and if need 
be, to die for. Who does not thank God that he can be an 
actor in such scenes? 



— 314 — 

As the force of no great truth is lost in traveling" down 
the centuries, so shall the moral power of this great victory 
vibrate throug-h all coming" time, and amid "the music of 
falling- chains" which ringfs in the ravished ears of the world 
to-nig"ht, downtrodden humanity shall take fresh courag"e, 
and the true democratic idea take more firmly hold of the 
hearts of men. 
"When a deed is done for Freedom, throug"h the broad 

earth's aching- breast 
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling- on from East to 

West, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him. 

climb 
To the awful verg-e of manhood, as the energ-y sublime 
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of 

Time." 

[Applause.] 



ADDRKSS 

OF MR. ASHLEY AT NAPOLEON, NOV. 24th, 1864. 



FROM THE TOLEDO COMMERCIAI„ 



"We lay before our readers the masterly address delivered 
by Hon. J. M. Ashley, at Napoleon, on Friday last. We ask 
for it an attentive perusal. It is a clear, able and manly 
avowal, or rather — we mig-ht say — re-avowal of the princi- 
ples by which he has ever been guided. His position on the 
great issues of the day — as it ever has been — is clearly and 
unmistakably defined. There is no hesitation, no faltering, 
no equivocation. No man in the District, we care not to 
what party he belongs, has ever been in doubt as to the 
position of our honorable Representative. The words de- 
fining the stand he takes on any of the great questions of the 
day are as plain and sharp-cut as the English language can 
furnish, and they are employed with an earnestness that none 
can doubt, and " the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not 
err therein. " He is the same now that he ever has been — the 
fearless, uncompromising foe to every form of oppression — 
the undaunted advocate of freedom to all men. It is not to 
be supposed that a man of his position, who has steadily and 
fearlessly pursued a course, not according to the dictates of 
cold, calculating policy, but in accordance with his convictions 
of right and duty, should find his pathway clear of obstacles. 
He who fearlessly pursues the path which duty points out v/ill 
be assailed. The path is not lined with flowers, and those 
who suppose it to be will only meet with sore disappoint- 
ment. Our Representative has not been without his share of 
opposition to Qontend with. Calumny, detraction, falsehood 
and slander have assailed him with sleepless activity. His 

(315) 



— 316 — 

persecutors have seemed to vie with each other in the relent- 
less vindictiveness with which they have pursued him. 
Abashed by his candor in the declaration of the principles he 
entertains, and unable to pick a flaw in his cong-ressional 
record, either in speech, or vote, or act, they have resorted to 
that easier, but more detestable method of attack — that of 
wholesale calumny and falsehood. 

A secies of falsehoods have been persistently indulged in, 
and circulated by his enemies throug-h the District for more 
than two years past. In the speech we present to-day, he 
meets these base charg-es, and with the weapon of truth, he 
exposes their utter absurdity, and administers to their 
authors the scathing- they so justly deserve. 

"We desire that every citizen in the District carefully and 
impartially peruse this speech. His high reputation as a 
man, and his public record as a statesman, are evidence 
suf&cient to warrant the confidence of his constituents. The 
malicious detractions of a few personal enemies, on account 
of some real or fancied g-rievances, cannot for one moment be 
weig-hed in the balance against the high commendations be- 
stowed upon him by some of the best and most distinguished 
men in the nation. The series of letters we published yester- 
day should silence the voice of detraction, still muttered 
o'er by those who claim to belong to the Republican Union 
party. The most prominent men of the country regard him 
as an able and faithful Representative, one who has never 
wavered nor hesitated in his devotion to the Union, one who 
has ever been the earnest, determined champion of freedom, 
and the inveterate, uncompromising foe to every form of 
slavery and rebellion. 

Hon. Salmon P. Chase says "his vote has never been 
separated from his duty." Hon. Columbus Delano, intimately 
acquainted with the local issues in this district, says that 
Mr. Ashley " has under all circumstances, been true to the 
cause of justice, humanity and liberty," and "has never 
faltered in devotion and loyalty to the government." Hon. 
Charles Sumner says, " he has been firm when others have 
hesitated, and from an early day saw the secret of this war, 
and I may add, also, the secret of victory." Hon. Daniel S. 



— 317— , 

Dickinson, of New York, likewise pays a tribute to his ' ' fidelity 
and firmness in the cause of resisting* rebellion." Is the testi- 
mony of these disting"uished champions of Union and free- 
dom, these able statesmen and loyal men of the country, to be 
set aside, and the vituperation and calumnies of a few petty 
factionists to be received and countenanced? Let the people 
decide. 

REUNION AND SUPPER AT NAPOLEON, FRIDAY, NOV. 25, 1864. 

The Union men of Napoleon and vicinity had a very 
pleasant interchange of congratulations over the recent politi- 
cal victories, on Friday afternoon and evening". 

The meeting at the Court House was a g"rand success, 
both as it regards the numbers and the deep interest of the 
audience, and the effective and eloquent speeches which were 
delivered. 

The meeting was called to order, and, on motion, 
William Sheffield, Ksq., was appointed to preside. In a 
short but forcible speech, the chairman tendered his acknowl- 
edgements for the honor conferred, and stated the object for 
which they had assembled, to be in honor of the triumph of 
liberty, and of the friends of freedom, at the ballot-box. 

He affirmed that in this epoch of our country's history, 
principles had been developed which were of the highest 
moment to the well-being* and happiness of every citizen. It 
was, therefore, important and hig"hly proper, that all true men 
should thus meet to celebrate the triumphs of principle and 
of the rights of humanity, and to concert plans of action by 
which their highest blessing-s may be realized. Although 
the full tide of success had attended the efforts of our brave 
soldiers on the battlefield, and al'so the political conflict at 
the ballot-box, yet he deemed the important issues still at 
stake as demanding- the calm deliberation and united action 
of all true patriots. He considered it important that every 
man should possess, at heart, the highest motive to action — 
the love of country. Thus influenced, the partisan would 
merg"e in the patriot, and his regard for human rights would 
cause him to triumph over individual selfishness. 



— 318 — 

The President concluded by introducing- the Hon. J. M. 
AsHlej, "wlio, on arising", was received with, g-reat applause, 
and addressed the audience as follows: 

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: We have 
met to-day to celebrate a g-reat national triumph — a 
triumph unparalleled in the history of the republic. I do 
not count it a political or partisan triumph, but a triumph of 
the country. No poor words of mine can add to the joy you 
all feel. I will not attempt this afternoon to tell you what I 
understand this victory to mean, or to detain you with a 
speech on its causes and consequences. I prefer to leave that 
theme for the speeches this evening". 

I did not expect when I stepped off the cars half an hour 
ag"o to be called upon for a speech this afternoon. It is but 
a few minutes since I was advised that the Court House was 
filling" up and that I must g"o over; that many who were in 
town could not remain for the meeting" to-nig-ht, and that it 
was your wish to see and hear me. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I know by your kindly g"reeting" 
that I am in the midst of friends, and I need not add, tried 
and true friends. I have no prepared speech for you. I 
wish I had. 

My invitation said you were to have a supper to-nig"ht, 
and toasts and short responses at the table by those who were 
called out. So I am rather taken by surprise; but when I 
look over this audience and see the faces of the old men, the 
solid men of Henry County, who have stood by me throug"h 
evil as well as good report for so many years, I feel thankful 
that I am able to speak to you, and take so many of you by 
the hand this afternoon. 

As I will meet many of you again to-night around the 
festal board, where we shall exchange congratulations on the 
great triumph achieved by Union soldiers and citizens in the 
election of Abraham Lincoln, and the success of the Union 
cause, I may without impropriety, I trust, talk of some matters 
which would hardly be in place at a mere dinner-table speech. 
I embrace the opportunity, all the more readily, because a 
friend is present who can report me, and do what I have not 
time to do, write out and have published what I say, so that 



— 319 — 

my friends throug-hout the District ma}- read around their 
own firesides what I say to you to-day. I can thus talk almost 
face to face with thousands of as warm and earnest friends as I 
now have before me. [Applause.] Honored by a repetition 
of your confidence oftener than any man who has preceded 
me in Congress from this District, I am deeply sensible of 
the oblig-ations I am under to its true Union electors, and 
especially to the Union soldiers in the field, and I am glad of 
this opportunity to express to you and to them the gratitude 
I feel for the generous indorsement given me at the recent 
election. [Applause.] 

THE STATE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION. 

Remembering the condition of affairs in this District two 
years ago, and considering all the circumstances attending 
our recent congressional canvass, the unnatural combinations 
formed, the unexpected defection of some upon whose support 
we confidently relied, and the extraordinary means resorted 
to on the eve of the election to divide, defraud and defeat the 
Republican Union party in the District, I feel complimented 
by the large home vote which was given me. Under the 
circumstances my home vote was as large in proportion to the 
vote polled as I had a right to expect. [Applause.] 

Nominated by acclamation at the hands of the regular 
Republican Union convention for the District, a convention 
the most imposing in point of numbers and by far the most 
respectable for character and ability, of any congressional 
convention which has ever assembled in the District, since I 
have been a resident among you, I felt pained that any 
respectable number of gentlemen calling themselves Union 
men, should, after the nomination was made, have consented to 
co-operate with the leaders of a party admitted to be opposed 
to the prosecution of the war and hostile to the administra- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln in its civil and military policy, 
and above all, that any professed Union men should have 
consented to resort to the trickery, fraud and demagogism 
which characterized the opposition to me in the late congres- 
sional canvass. 



— 320 — 



His ANTI-SLAVERY POSITION. 



I may be pardoned if here among- friends I refer to some 
matters of a local and personal character, matters which are 
intimately connected with our past contests in this District. 

When first a candidate to represent you in Congress, I 
laid down the proposition in all speeches which I made "that 
under a democratic form of g-overnment man could not leg-ally 
or rightly be made property." [Applause.] 

I dissented from and denounced the declaration made by 
Henry Clay, when he said "that which the usage of two hund- 
red years .had sanctioned and sanctified as property, was prop- 
erty." I declared that slavery was the crime of all crimes, and 
"the sum of villainies;" that a g-overnmen^- could as right- 
fully legalize murder, robbery and piracy as to legalize the 
ownership and sale of men, and I uniformly added that I did not 
want a single elector to vote for me who could not indorse this 
proposition. [Applause.] I was very desirous of an elec- 
tion, as I always am when a candidate, but I preferred defeat 
rather than to obtain a single vote, either by withholding 
my opinions or professing all things to all men. [Applause.] 
You know the result; I was elected in the civOSEST. Congres- 
sional District in the State by a larger vote than was 
GIVEN FOR THE REGULAR REPUBLICAN State ticket. [Ap- 
plause.] 

In 1860, I was again elected by an increased majority, 
after a very spirited canvass with General Steedman, in 
which I repeated the same proposition, that man could _-"^t 
legally be made property by any government. [Applause.] 

At the outset of the war I declared "that as slavery 

WAS THE CAUSE OP THE REBELLION, SLAVERY ^ SHOULD DIE.'* 

[Applause.] Having taken this position at a time when the 
reaction was everywhere against anti-slnvery men, as you 
remember it was, for the first year or eighteen months after 
the war broke out, many Union men in the District were 
unwilling to sustain me. That position, and the repudiation 
by me of part of the platform adopted by the Union State 
convention of that year, greatly strengthened the conserva- 
tive Union candidate for Congress in the triangular contest 
which unfortunately we then had, and I was only elected by 



— 321 — 

a plurality of eleven hundred and eIg"hty-two votes. [Ap- 
plause.] The main part of the Union State platform that 
year, all will recollect, was made up of an extract from a 
letter or speech of Honorable Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, and 
the Crittenden resolution, which resolution all now under- 
stand was a cheat and a sham. This platform I said then 
and repeat now, was most cowardly, and unworthy the Repub- 
lican Union party of the g-reat State of Ohio, and I am sure 
its adoption, .together with some of the candidates nomi- 
nated, caused our defeat in the State that year. [That's so.] 
The Republican Union State convention in 1863 not only 
g-ladly buried the disg-usting- platform of '62 out of sight, 
but I trust put it beyond the hope of resuscitation. [Ap- 
plause.] I was a delegate in that convention, and a member 
of the committee on resolutions for this District, and aided 
in putting it into its grave, as I told the people of this Dis- 
trict it would be, and, although the platform then adopted 
was not all that I desired or all that it ought to have been, it 
was not, as the platform in 1862 was, positively offensive to 
the true anti-slavery men of the State. [Applause.] 

The Republican Union State platform, and the National 
Republican platform of 1864, were all that] any friend of 
freedom and republican government could ask. They declare 
that " as slavery was the cause of the rebellion, slavery 
should die." [Applause.] Thus, after a terrible struggle 
have the positions taken by me on the slavery question at 
the outbreak of the rebellion, been fully indorsed by the 
great party of which I am an humble member, and ratified 
by an overwhelming majority of the American people at the 
ballot-box. [Applause.] 

Though assailed, in 1861-62, by men in our own party, 
with a fury and mendacity which always go hand in hand 
with ignorance and intolerance, for demanding the liberation 
of every slave, and the employment of slaves as soldiers in 
the army, no man claiming to be a Union man, can now be 
found to condemn me, because time has demonstrated its 
necessity and the Republican Union party approves, and the 
nation decrees, emancipation. [Applause.] To be so repeat- 
21 



— 322- 

edly elected in a District so close and conservative as ours, 
[while everywhere avowing- and defending" my radical anti- 
Jslavery opinions, is an honor of which I am, indeed, very 
proud. [Applause.] As the workingmen and starving" 
operatives of Manchester, England, said in their address to 
the President, thanking him for his Emancipation Proclama- 
tion, "Despotism has not money enough to make us betray 
Liberty," so I, a workingman, have said that "I would not 
abandon the sacred cause of liberty for the sake of place and 
power," and the workingmen, and the liberty-loving men of 
our District, at home and in the army, have most g-enerously 
sustained me. [Applause.] 

denunciation of the practice of defrauding EI.ECTORS. 

If I have one peculiarity which stands out more promi- 
nently than another, it is, that I define clearly and sharply 
my positions, and make my fight openly and squarely. I 
glory in making an open, manly fight, and I have the high- 
est respect for an open and manly opponent. No elector 
has ever been deceived as to where I stood on any of the 
great questions of the day, and I have never even allowed 
my name to be printed in an opposition ticket, without giving" 
the elector notice, by having" the ticket printed "Democratic 
ticket, except for Congress," and then having my name 
printed from a cut on which was engraved a fac-simile of my 
handwriting. So particular have I been in order to avoid 
even the appearance of attempting to deceive any elector 
into voting for me. [Applause,] Some of my friends find 
fault with me because, in speaking, I uniformly say that I 
do not want the vote of a single elector unless he indorses 
the principles I advocate; and because I sometimes say half 
jocosely that I can be elected without the votes of men who 
are hostile to such principles, many seem to think or fear 
that others may think that I will be understood as saying 
" that I cannot be defeated." This is a mistake. I expect to 
be defeated, and prefer to be defeated, if a majority do not 
approve my principles. [Applause.] If they approve them, 
I expect to be elected, not because of any power I may have, 



— 323 — 

or because I am the candidate, but because for the time being' 
I am representing- these ideas, that is all. [Applause.] 

Any unscrupulous man can play the demagogue with 
ease. The smallest or meanest of men are the only ones who 
do it. In my opinion no man can be more infamous than he 
who by fraud or falsehood deceives an honest elector. [Ap- 
plause.] You know the men who, during our late congres- 
sional canvass, have deliberately and with cool calculation 
and premeditation deceived many honest voters in this Dis- 
trict. Let every one, whether as principals or accessories, 
guilty of this great crime, receive from every honorable man 
that condemnation which his baseness deserves. [Applause.] 

A ballot once cast cannot be recalled, and no man can 
over-estimate in advance the importance and moral power of 
a single vote. Yet men who know this, permit themselves to 
be deceived so often that I sometimes think electors offer a 
premium to demagogues. [Applause.] So alarmingly suc- 
cessful have demagogues become, that men claiming to be 
Christian gentlemen, not only laugh at frauds committed at 
caucuses and on electors, but permit themselves to become 
parties to these frauds. [Applause.] 

But I am charged with making bad and unpopular ap 
pointments. Well, gentlemen, it may be true that, in some 
localities, I have not made the best selections. I am rather 
inclined to think that it is so, but I have in every instance 
done what I thought at the time for the best. Could any 
honest Union man, in such a crisis as this, justify himself 
for voting against Abraham Lincoln, because he persisted in 
the face of the opposition of almost every Union man in Con- 
gress, and in the country, in keeping McClellan, Fitz-John 
Porter, Buel and others in the army, and men in some 
of the departments of the government, who have turned out 
traitors, defaulters and supporters of the Chicago platform? 
Certainly not. [Applause.] Yet a number of men voted 
against me, because of some of my appointments, who were 
ver^' earnest for Mr. Lincoln, yet I have never appointed a 
traitor or rebel sympathizer, or a supporter of the Chicago 
platform and its nominees. [Applause.] That I have made 
mistakes, I admit, but in every instance I have done what the 



— 324 — 

leading Republicans of each locality recommended and what 
I thoug^ht for the best. If I had never had an appointment 
to make in this District or from it, I am sure it would have 
been better for me. [Applause.] 

In the future, as in the past, I intend to be g"ov- 
erned in the appoi^ntments which I shall make by the advice 
of the men who elect me, and not by personal or political 
opponents. [Applause.] 

In distributing- patronage my motto has ever been and 
ever shall be, ''justice; to A1.1,, speciai, favors friends 
ALONE." [Applause.] As your Representative I have tried 
to do my duty, and my whole duty. How well I have suc- 
ceeded you and posterity are to judge. That Ihave served 
you in a most trying period in our history is true, and while 
many men who, when I first entered Congress, stood high 
before the country have fallen short of the requirements of 
the hour, and been weighed in the balance and found want- 
ing, thanks to the constancy and firmness of such men as are 
before me, I have been most generously sustained, and my 
reputation as a citizen and Representative fully vindicated. 
[Applause.] 

No man claiming to be a loyal man has dared to assail 
my congressional record, and whatever may be the verdict of 
history on that record, I know and you know, that by no vote, 
or act, or word of mine have the rebels or their Northern 
allies been strengthened, or the arm of Abraham Lincoln or 
of any loyal man been weakened. [Applause.] 

No speech or vote, or word of mine has breathed a single 
word of discouragement to soldier or citizen; but everywhere, 
in season and out of season, my words and acts and votes have 
been to encourage, strengthen and consolidate into one invin- 
cible army the truly loyal men of the nation. [Applause.] 
And in view of these well-known facts, I feel that I have 
been unjustly treated by many members of the Union party. 
I go into our party caucuses and conventions pledged, as I 
think every honorable man ought to regard himself, to the 
support of the nominee of the convention. Many men who 
opposed me two years ago and again this year, went into our 
caucuses and conventions determined to support their candi- 



date if they could g-et him nominated, and demand that I and 
my friends should do so also; but the moment they found 
themselves in the minority, they bolted and formed secret or 
open alliances with the opposition. [That is true.] 

I think that I and my friends have a rig-ht to complain of 
such unfairness. If the convention which nominated me 
had selected any other Union man, you all know that I would 
have g"iven him my earnest support, as would also my friends. 
In addition to this, the editor of a professed Union paper in 
our city, declared to his readers a few weeks ag-o that "I 
was not the candidate of the Union party for this District." 
Now, g-entlemen, you know who nominated me. I know, as 
3^ou do, that every man who was a member of that large and 
respectable convention was a true Union man. You know 
also that there was no other Union Congressional convention 
held in this District; that that convention nominated our 
District candidate for presidential elector, and selected the 
two delegates who represented the Republican Union men of 
this District in the Baltimore convention which renominated 
Abraham Lincoln, and yet this statement is unblushingly 
published. This same paper charged me two years ago, and 
again this fall, with being a disunionist, and classed me with 
such men as George H. Pendleton. I ask any man before me 
if I have ever given a vote in Congress or out of it, or writ- 
ten or spoken a single word, which would induce him to sus- 
pect that I was an enemy of the government, or in sympathy 
with the political opinions of George H. Pendleton. The 
man who could, with the unanimous action of the regular 
Republican Union Congressional convention for this District 
before him, and with my congressional record within his 
reach, publish such declarations, would hesitate at no state- 
ment to accomplish his purposes. I appeal to the Union men 
of this District, and to my congressional and public record, 
to answer and condemn this slanderer. [Applause.] 

And I here take leave of this subject. In the midst of 
the general thanksgiving and rejoicing" which surrounds us, 
and which fills the hearts of all true Union men everywhere, 
let us forget the acts and forgive the real or fancied wrongs 
done us, by any who have aided us in electing" Abraham 



— 326 — 

Ivincoln. I want to forg-ive and forg-et the unjust things 
which have been said of me bj some who are now Union men 
and are laboring with me to save the republic. [Applause.] 

I have only referred to these matters to set myself right 
before the loyal men of the District, and especially with my 
personal friends. [Applause.] 

I am ready, willing and anxious to forgive any Union 
man who has wronged me, and to ask the forgiveness of any 
man whom in the excitement of a political contest I may 
unintentionally have wronged. I have never intentionally 
wronged any man. I have never purposely planted a thorn 
in any man's pathway, or knowingly said an unjust word of 
a political or personal opponent. [Applause.] You, and the 
people of this Congressional District, have heard me on the 
stump every year for ten years, and yet amid the excitement 
incident to the personal conflicts through which I have g'one, 
no man has ever heard me traduce the character of an oppo- 
nent or slander any man, nor have I ever said a single word 
of a personal or political rival, that I would not have said of 
him, had he been present. [Applause.] 

As I would that others should do unto me, even so I 
would do unto them. [Applause.] 

A GREAT WORK YET BEFORE US. 

Fellow-citizens, a great work is yet before us. There is 
ample scope for the exercise of all our faculties. A generous 
rivalry in support of the government and in maintaining its 
armies, presents a field broad enough for the ambition of all. 
Let us try to forget and forgive the errors of the past, and 
remember only that our bleeding country demands the united 
efforts of all her true sons. [Applause.] We all want peace. 
Every home which this war has made desolate and draped in 
mourning, is crying for peace. The wives and the mothers 
of a million men are to-day praying for peace; not the 
peace asked for by the coward and the traitor, but the peace 
which comes through victory; the only peace which can be 
honorable and enduring. We cannot have such a peace while 
we are divided. [Applause.] 



— 327 — 

Oh, my countrymen, let me, I beseech you, as you love 
your country, and have g-lorious hopes for its future, subordi- 
nate all personalities and all party strife to the hig-her, 
holier and sublimer aspirations of patriotism and love of 
justice. 

If we do not stand tog-ether we shall fall. If we are 
united we shall be invincible. Then 

*'One more sublime endeavor, 

And behold the dawn of peace; 
One more endeavor, and war forever 

Throughout the land shall cease; 
Forever and ever the vanquished power 

Of slavery shall be slain. 
And Freedom's stained and trampled flower 

Shall blossom white again." 

[The honorable gentleman concluded his eloquent speech 
amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience.] 



IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENCE. 



November 14tli, 1892. 
Hon. J. M. Ashi^ey, Toledo, Ohio. 

Dear Sir: In looking- over tlie pamphlets and papers 
which you sent us, we are disappointed not to find the text of 
the 13th amendment, and the first draft of the bill for the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, as orig-inally 
proposed in Cong-ress by you. 

James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Cong-ress," 
states that you introduced the first proposition for the entire 
abolition of slavery in this country by amending- the Consti- 
tution, but does not give the text. 

"We desire an exact copy of the original of bpth these 
bills, if we can g-et them, so that we may point out wherein 

Letter from Bishop Benjamxu W. Arnett, D. D., Wilberforce, O. 
On the next half dozen pag-es will be found a condensed history of g-reater importance 
to the negro, and to the human race, than can elsewhere he found in any book we have 
ever read. The story as presented is all the more fascinating' because of the direct 
and simple manner in which it is told. But for our letter, making a special request 
for this history, it probably would never have been written. In answering our letter 
on this page, and the letter of inquiry on page 359, we have learned that the first re- 
construction bill reported to the House was prepared by Mr. Ashley, and the bill for 
the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and also that the first propo- 
sition made in Congress for amending the Constitution, prohibiting slavery in the 
United States, was introduced by him. The public records show that no man in our 
history made a grander, or more successful battle, than did Mr. Ashley, for the libera- 
tion and practical uplifting of the negro. B. W. Arnett, 

(328) 



— 329 — 

the amendment which is now a part of the national Constitu- 
tion, differs in the text, as we understand it does, from the 
proposition as you orig^inally made it. We Icnow that the 
law for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 
as it finally passed, was radically different from your original 
bill. I have the honor to be, 

Very respectfully yours, for God and the race, 




Chairman. 



Toledo, Ohio, December 22, 1892. 
My Dear Sir: The text of the original bill introduced 
by me in Congress, for the abolition of slavery in the District 
of Columbia, was as follows: 

" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: 

" That from and after the passage of this act, neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment 
for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, 
shall exist in the District of Columbia; and thereafter it shall 
not be lawful for any person in said District to own or to 
hold a human being as a slave." 

On my motion this short but comprehensive bill was 
referred to the District of Columbia Committee, of which I 
was a member, and of which Roscoe Conkling, of New York, 
was chairman. 

The exitement' and unpleasantness which the introduc- 
tion of this simple bill caused in the District of Columbia 
Committee, amuses me now, but at that time the opposition 
was offensive enough, and the conduct of some of the pro- 
slavery members, fanatical almost to madness. 

Evidently, my purpose could not be misunderstood. I 
did not propose to recognize the right of man to property 
in man. 



, ~ 330 — 

It did not take long to discover that no such, bill as I had 
proposed could be g-otten through the District of Columbia 
Committee, as it was then organized. 

I had quietly determined that Congress should not 
adjourn, if I could prevent it, until after we had — as Mr. 
Lincoln expressed it — " initiated emancipation at the national 
capital." 

On the threshold, I was confronted with the certainty of 
defeat, unless I consented to a radical modification of my 
bill, which I reluctantly did, at the urgent request of Mr. 
Lincoln, Secretary Chase, Senator "Wade and others. 

Finally a bill for the "ransom" of all slaves held in the Dis- 
trict was prepared by Senator Morrell, of Maine, and myself, 
with the co-operation of President Lincoln, Governor Chase 
and others, and passed substantially as reported. An appro- 
priation of one million dollars was agreed upon to pay loyal 
slave-owners, provided the amount paid should not exceed 
three hundred dollars for each slave so emancipated. 

In my address before the "Ohio Society of New York," 
you will learn why I consented to "ransom" the slaves by 
compensating the slave-owners, as provided in the bill agreed 
upon by the Senate and House Committees, which became a 
law. I spoke in favor of and voted both in the Committee and 
in the House, for the bill as reported, and as it passed. My 
speech in the House maybe found in the "Appendix to Con- 
gressional Globe for the Second Session of the Thirty- 
seventh Congress," pages 101-2. 

The text of the Thirteenth Amendment, as it finally 
passed Congress and became part of our national Constitution, 
reads as follows: 

ARTICLE 13. 

" Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, 
except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or 
any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this 
ARTICLE by appropriate legislation." 

The language of the original, as prepared and introduced 
by me on the 14th day of December, 1863, was the same as the 



— 331 — 

above, except five words. On my motion, the amendment 
which I proposed was referred to the Committee on the 
Judiciary, of which I was not a member. 

The phraseolog-y of section one, at the end, was changed 
in one word, and the words "their jurisdiction" used, instead 
of "its jurisdiction," as I had it. 

The g-ranting- clause in my original proposition read: 

" Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce 
this ARTICI.E, by law duly enacted." 

A-s it finally passed, it reads as follows: 

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this 

ARTICLE by APPROPRIATE LEGISLATION." 

It will be observed, that the first section had one word 
substituted for another, and that section two was materially 
improved by striking out the four words in small capitals in my 
proposition, and substituting- two better words in 'their place, 
at the end of the section. 

The five words designated were the only changes made 
in my original draft of the Thirteenth Amendment, as it now 
appears in the constitution. In preparing- my amendment, I 
simply followed the suggestions contained in the Ordinance 
■of 1787. I did so, because that Ordinance was familiar to the 
public, and the lang-uage had received a judicial interpreta- 
tion. 

I used substantially the same languag-e a year before, in 
my original bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. 

There were some thirty such constitutional amendments, 
proposing- the abolition of slavery in the United States, 
offered in the Senate and the House, by as many different 
members, and so far as I remember, all of them, except Mr. 
Sumner's, were substantially copies (as mine was) of the 
language of the Ordinance of 1787. Each and all of said 
proposed amendments, so introduced, either in the Senate or 
House, were appropriately referred to the Committee on the 
Judiciary. 

Neither by speech, nor in writing, have I ever said a word 
for publication, touching the inside history of the passage by 
Congress either of the bill to " ransom" the slaves in the Dis- 



— 332 — 

trict of Columbia, or the passag-e of the Thirteenth Amendment 
abolishing- slavery throug-hout the republic, except what I 
said in an address before the " Ohio Society of New York," a 
copy of which I sent 3'our committee. And I must be excused 
from saying" more now. So many noble men were associated 
with me in the passag-e of both these important measures, 
and each did so much to secure their enactment into law, 
that I have scrupulously refrained from claiming any credit 
for myself, or designating- any member as especially entitled 
to more credit than another, for their passage by that Con- 
gress, fearing I might fail to accord the full credit to which 
each were entitled. 

Every friend of the right, will, I am sure, agree with me, 
that each man who did his duty in that eventful hour, and 
voted for these great national measures, is entitled in history 
to g-enerous recognition and equal commendation, without 
questioning- whether he came to their support first or last. 

If an}' of the Representatives in that Congress, who voted 
for the Thirteenth Amendment to the national Constitution 
abolishing- slavery, are entitled to more credit than another^ 
it seems to me that the thirteen men in the House, from the 
then border slave States of Delaware, Maryland, West Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky and Missouri, are entitled to that honor. 
As I now look back at their manl}^ acts and votes in favor of 
the constitutional abolition and prohibition of slavery every- 
where beneath our flag-, their self-sacrificing- heroism rises 
into the sublime. 

Truly yours, 

J. M'. Ashley. 
Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D., 

Chairman Publication Committee. 



SPKKCH 

OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, 
In thb House op Representatives, January 6, 1865. 



ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT FOR THE ABOLITION 

OF SLAVERY. 



AMEND THE CONSTITUTION — IT IS THE WAY TO UNITY AND 

PEACE. 



Mr. Ashley said: I desire to call up this morning-, pur- 
suant to notice previously g-iven, the motion to reconsider the 
vote by which the joint resolution proposing an amendment 
of the Constitution in reference to slavery was rejected. 

Mr. Holm an: Does the gentleman call it up for action 
to-day? 

Mr. Ashley: No, sir; but for discussion, intending to 
let that discussion run on until the House sees fit to order the 
main question to be put. 

The Speaker: This being private bill day, it requires a 
majority vote to set aside the consideration of private bills. 

The consideration of private bills was set aside by a 
majority vote, and the motion to reconsider was taken up. 

Mr. Ashley: Mr. Speaker, "If slavery is not wrong, 
NOTHING IS wrong. " Thus simply and truthfully hath spoken 
our worthy Chief Magistrate. 

The proposition before us is, whether this universally 
acknowledged wrong shall be continued or abolished. Shall 
it receive the sanction of the American Congress by the 
rejection of this proposition, or shall it be condemned as an 
intolerable wrong by its adoption? 

(333) 



— 334 — 

If slavery had never been known in the United States, 
and the proposition should be made in Cong-ress to-day to 
authorize the people of the several States to enslave any 
portion of our own people or the people of any other country, 
it would be universally denounced as an infamous and crimi- 
nal proposition, and its author would be execrated, and 
justly, by all right-thinking- men, and held to be an enemy of 
the human race. 

1 do not believe such a proposition could secure a sing-le 
vote in this House; and yet we all know that a number of 
gentlemen who could not be induced to enslave a single free 
man, will nevertheless vote to keep millions of men in sla- 
very, who are by nature and the laws of God as much entitled 
to their freedom as we are. I will not attempt to explain 
this strange inconsistency, or make an argument to show its 
fallacy. I content myself with simply stating the fact. 

It would seem as if no man favorable to peace, concord, 
and a restored Union, could hesitate for a moment as to how 
he should vote on this proposition. Certainly, whatever of 
strife, sectional bitterness, and personal animosity these halls 
have witnessed since my appearance in Congress, or, indeed, 
I may say, since the organization of parties in 1836, slavery 
has usually been the sole cause. No observer of our history, 
or of the political parties which have been organized and dis- 
banded, now hesitates to declare that slavery is the cause of 
this terrible civil war. All who understand anything of our 
troubles, either in this country or Europe, now know that 
but for slavery there would have been no rebellion in this 
country to-day. 

In the very nature of things it was impossible for a 
government organized as ours to endure half slave and 
half free; and nothing can be clearer to the reader of 
history than that the men who made our Constitution 
never expected nor desired the nation to remain half slave 
and half free. Our fathers were men of ideas, and they 
believed that with the adoption of the Constitution slavery 
would cease to exist. Sir, while demanding liberty for them- 
selves, and proclaiming to the world the inalienable right of 
all men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they 



— 335 — 

were not g-uilty of the infamy of making- a Constitution 
which, by any fair rules of construction, can be interpreted 
into a denial of liberty, happiness and justice to an entire 
race. 



THE NATION CAN NOT ENDURE HALF SLAVE AND HALF FREE. 

That the founders of the Republic were sadly disap- 
pointed in their expectations that slavery would cease on the 
adoption of the national Constitution is undoubtedly true. 
Instead of disappearing, as they confidently expected, circum- 
stances unforeseen by them so strengthened slavery that in 
less than eighty years it became the dominant interest in the 
nation, and in 1860 openly demanded the entire control of the 
National Government. Because this demand was refused 
by the free laboring men of the North, the slave barons of 
the South organized this the most wicked of all rebellions, 
and for nearly four long years have waged this terrible war 
with the avowed purpose of destroying the best form of 
government ever vouchsafed to man, in order to establish in 
lits stead a government whose corner-stone should be human 
slavery. This is the logic of the contest. It has at last so 
fully developed itself that all the world, including its most 
STUPID editors, now understand it. The government of our 
fathers must either be maintained, and slavery die, or slavery 
must live and the government be destroyed. The conflict is 
" irrepressible," and beyond compromise. The nation cannot 
longer endure half slave and half free. 

Had statesmen administered this government for the past 
twenty years, instead of the trading politicians who have dis- 
graced it, first by apologizing for, then justifying, and at 
last openly defending slavery as a right guaranteed by the 
national Constitution, we should have had no such desolat- 
ing war as we have in this country to-day. 

If the national Constitution had been rightfully inter- 
preted, and the government organized under it properly 
administered, slavery could not have legally existed in 
THIS COUNTRY FOR A SINGLE HOUR, and practically but a few 
years after the adoption of the Constitution. Only because 



— 336 — 

the fundamental principles of the government have been 
persistently violated in its administration, and the Constitution 
g-rossly perverted by the courts, is it necessary to-day to pass 
the amendment now under consideration. I say this much 
in vindication of the memory of the great and good men who, 
when establishing this government, made a Constitution 
which, to-day, is the best known among men. 



DENUNCIATION OF SLAVERY. 

As for myself, I do not believe any constitution can 
legalize the enslavement of men. I do not believe ant 

GOVERNMENT, DEMOCRATIC OR DESPOTIC, CAN RIGHTFULLY MAKE 

Ia single slave; and that which a government cannot right- 
fully do, it cannot rightfully or legally authorize or even 
permit, its subject to do. I do not believe that there can be, 
legally, such a thing as property in man. A majority in a 
republic cannot rightfully enslave the minority, nor can the 
accumulated decrees of courts or the musty precedents of 
governments make oppression just. I do not, however, wish 
to go into a discussion of the question of slavery as an abstract 
question. It is a system so at war with human nature, so 
revolting and brutal, and is, withal, so at variance with the 
precepts of Christianity and every idea of justice, so abso- 
lutely indefensible in itself, that I will not uncover its hideous 
blackness and thus harrow up my own and the feelings of 
others by a description of its disgusting horrors, or an 
attempted recital of its terrible barbarism and indescribable 
villainy. 

It is enough for me to know that slavery has forced this 
terrible civil war upon us — a war which we could not have 
avoided, if we would, without an unconditional surrender to 
its degrading demands. It has thus attempted to strike a 
death-blow at the national life. It has shrouded the land in 
mourning and filled it with widows and orphans. It has 
publicly proclaimed itself the enemy of the Union and our 
unity as a free people. Its barbarities have no parallel in 
the world's history. The enormities committed by it upon cur 




As he Appeared when the Thirteenth Amendment was Passed. 



— 337 — 

Union prisoners of war were never equaled in atrocity since 
the creation of man. 

For more than thirty years past there is no crime known 
among- men which it has not committed under the sanction 
of law. It has bound men and women in chains, even the 
children of the slave-masters, and sold them in the public 
shambles like beasts. Under the plea of Christianizing- 
them, it has'enslaved, beaten, maimed, and robbed millions 
of men for whose salvation the Man of Sorrows died. It so 
constituted its courts that the complaints and appeals of 
these people could not be heard, by reason of the decision 
*' that black men had no rig"hts which white men were bound 
to respect." It has for many years defied the g-overnment 
and trampled upon the national Constitution by kidnapping*, 
imprisoning-, mobbing* and murdering" white citizens of the 
United States g"uilty of no oifense except protesting- ag-ainst 
its terrible crimes. It has silenced every free pulpit within 
its control, and debauched thousands which oug-ht to have 
been independent. It has denied the masses of poor white 
children within its power the privileg-e of free schools, and 
made free speech and a free press impossible within its do- 
main; while ig-norance, poverty, and vice are almost universal 
wherever it dominates. Such is slavery, our mortal enemy, 
and these are but a tithe of its crimes. No nation could 
adopt a code of laws which would sanction such enormities, 
and live. No man deserves the name of statesman who would 
consent that such a monster should live in the republic for a 
sing-le hour. 



CAN SLAVERY BE ABOLISHED IN STATES BY CONSTITUTIONAL 

AMENDMENT? 

Mr. Speaker, if slavery is wrong- and criminal, as the 
great body of enlig-htened and Christian men admit, it is cer- 
tainly our duty to abolish it, if we have the power. Have 
we the power? The fifth article of the Constitution of the 
United States reads as follows: 
22 



— 338— 

"The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses 
shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this 
Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of 
two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for 
proposing- amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid 
to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when 
ratified by the leg^islatures of three-fourths of the several 
States, or by convention in three-fourths thereof, as one or the 
other mode of ratification may be proposed by t^e Cong-ress; 
provided that no amendment which "may be made prior to the 
year 1808 shall in any manner affect the first and fourth 
clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no 
State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suf- 
frage iu the Senate." 

The question which first presents itself in examining" 
this provision of the Constitution is, what constitutes two- 
thirds of both Houses? or, what, in the eye of the Constitu- 
tion, is two-thirds of the House of Representatives? Is it 
two- thirds of the entire number of members to which all the 
States, including the States in rebellion, would be entitled, 
if they were all now represented, or is it two-thirds of the 
members who have been elected and qualified? 

This question would have entered largely into the dis- 
cussion of the subject now under consideration, had not your 
predecessor, Mr, Speaker, decided, and this House sustained 
him in declaring, that a majority of the members elected 
and RECOGNIZED by the House made a constitutional quorum. 

It has, so far as the action of this body can dispose, of 
the question, been authoritatively settled, and settled, as I 
think it should have been, by declaring that a majority of 
the members elected and qualified constitutes a quo- 
rum, and that two-thirds of a quorum can constitutionally 
pass this amendment. The question having been thus dis- 
posed of, I do not care to make an argument in support of a 
proposition thus authoritatively settled. 

My colleague from the First District (Mr. Pendleton), in 
a speech which he made at the last session against the pas- 
sage of this amendment, raised the question as to the consti- 
tutional power of Congress to propose, and three-fourths of 
the legislatures of the States to adopt, an amendment ol 
the character of the one now under consideration. He 



— 339 — 

claimed that, thoug-h Congress passed the proposed amend- 
ment by the requis''te two-thirds, and three-fourths of the 
legislatures of the several States adopted it, or, indeed all 
the States save one, it would not leg-ally become a part of the 
national Constitution. These are his words: 

"But neither three-fourths of the States, nor all the 
States save one, can abolish slavery in that dissenting- State, 
because it lies within the domain reserved entirely to each 
State for itself, and upon it the other States cannot enter." 

Is this position defensible? If I read the Constitution 
arig-ht, and understand the force of lang-uag-e, the section 
which I have just quoted is to-day free from all limitations 
and conditions save two, one of which provides that the suf- 
frag-e of the several States in the Senate shall be equal, and 
that no State shall lose this equality by any amendment of 
the Constitution without its consent; the other relates to 
taxation. These are the only conditions and limitations. 

In myjudg-ment. Congress may propose, and three-fourths 
of the States may adopt, any amendment republican in its 
character and consistent with the continued existence of the 
nation, save in the two particulars just named. 

If they cannot, then is the clause of the Constitution 
-just quoted a dead letter, the States sovereig-n, the g-overn- 
ment a confederation, and the United States not a nation. 



the; state sovereignty heresy exposed. 

The extent to which this question of State rig-hts and 
State sovereignty has aided this terrible rebellion, and 
manacled and weakened the arm of the National Government 
can hardly be estimated. Certainly, doctrines so at war with 
the fundamental principles of the Constitution could not be 
accepted and acted upon by any considerable number of our 
citizens without eventually culminating in rebellion and 
civil war. 

This fatal heresy doubtless carried manj'- men of charac- 
ter and culture into the rebellion who were sincerely attached 
to the Union. If we may credit the recently published pri- 



— 340 — 

vate letters of General Lee, "written in the spring- of 1861, to 
his sister and friends, and never intended for publication, he 
was induced to unite his fortunes with the insurg^ents by the 
so-called secession of Virg-inia, under the belief that his first 
and hig-hest alleg-iance was due to his State. Sir, I know 
how hard it is for loyal men to credit this. To thinking- men, 
nothing seems more absurd than the political heresy called 
States rig"hts, in the sense which makes each State sovereig"n 
and the National Government the mere agent and creature of 
the States. Why, sir, the unity of the people of the United 
States antedates the Revolution. The original thirteen colo- 
nies were never in fact disunited. The man who had the 
right of citizenship in Virginia had the same right in New 
York. As one people they declared their independence, and 
as one people, after a seven years' war, conquered it. But 
the unity and citizenship of the people existed before the 
Revolution, and before the national Constitution. In fact, 
this unity gave birth to the Constitution. Without this 
unity and pre-existing nationality — if I may so express my- 
self — the Constitution would never have been formed. The 
men who carried us through the revolutionary struggle never 
intended, when establishing this government, to destroy that 
unity or lose their national citizenship. Least of all did 
they intend that we should become aliens to each other and 
citizens of petty, independent, sovereign States. In order to 
make fruitful the blessings which they had promised them- 
selves from independence, and to secure the unity and national 
citizenship for which they periled life, fortune and honor, 
they made the national Constitution. They had tried a con- 
federation. It did not secure them such a Union as they had 
fought for, and they determined to "form a more perfect 
Union." For this purpose they met in national convention, 
and formed a national constitution. They then submitted it 
to the electors of the States for their adoption or rejection. 
They did not submit it to the States as States, nor to the 
governments of the several States, but to the citizens of the 
United States residing in all the States. This was the only 
way in which they could have submitted it and been consist- 
ent with the declaration made in the preamble, which saj^s 



— 341 — 

** that we, the people of the United States, in order to form 
a more perfect Union, do ordain and establish this Constitu- 
tion," etc. The whole people were represented in this con- 
vention. Throug-h their representatives they pledg-ed each 
other that whenever the people of nink States shall ratify 
and approve the Constitution submitted to them, it should be 
the Constitution of the nation. 

In the light of these facts, to claim that our g-overn- 
ment is a confederation and the States sovereig-n, is an 
absurdity too transparent for serious arg-ument. Not only is 
the letter of the Constitution ag-ainst such a doctrine, but 
history also. Since the adoption of the national Constitution 
TWENTY-TWO States have been admitted into the Union, and 
clothed with part of the national sovereig-nty. The territory 
out of which twenty-one of these States were formed was the 
common territory of the nation. It has been acquired by 
cession, conquest or purchase. The sovereig-nty of the 
National Government over it was undisputed. The people 
who settled upon it were citizens of the United States. 
These twenty-one States were org-anized by the concurrent 
action of the citizens of the United States and the National 
Government. Without the consent of Congress they would 
have remained Territories. What an absurdity to claim that 
the citizens of the New England States, or of all the States, 
or of any section of the Union, may settle upon the territory 
of the United States, form State governments, with barely 
inhabitants enough to secure one Representative in the 
House under the apportionment, secure admission as a State, 
and then assume to be a sovereign and master of the National 
Government, with power to secede and unite with another and 
hostile government at pleasure, and to treat all citizens of 
the United States as alien enemies who do not think it their 
duty to unite with them. This is the doctrine which deluded 
many men into this rebellion, and which seems to delude 
some men here with the idea that the national Constitution 
cannot be amended so as to abolish slavery, even if all the 
States in the Union demanded it save Delaware. Under this 
theory of State sovereignty. States like Florida and Arkan- 
sas, erected on the national domain, may, as soon as they 



— 342 — 

secure admission into tlie Union, secede and embezzle all the 
property of the nation, including- the public lands, and forts, 
and arsenals, declare all citizens of the United States who do 
not unite with them alien enemies, confiscate their property, 
rob them of their liberty by impressing- them into their army 
to fig-ht ag-ainst their own country and g-overnment, and if 
they refuse, punish them by imprisonment and death. After 
doing- this, if the authority to commit such wholesale rob- 
bery, impressments and murders is denied them by the 
National Government, they set up the claim that they are 
sovereign and independent, and are only defending- their 
homes, their firesides and household gods, and we have men 
all over the North who to-day defend this monstrous assump- 
tion. 

Mr. Speaker, I presume no man, not even my colleag-ue, 
will deny that when the thirteen colonies or States assembled 
by their representatives in convention to make the present 
national Constitution, they might have abolished slavery at 
once. Or, if the theory of the old parties is true, that a 
republican government may authorize or permit the enslave- 
ment of men, which I deny, they could have provided for the 
emancipation of all slaves in twenty or fifty years, if they 
had seen fit; and if the people of nine States had voted to 
ratify such a constitution, slavery could not, after the period 
named, have existed by State law and in defiance of the 
national Constitution, ei4;her in one of the old thirteen States 
ratifying it, or in any one of the States admitted into the 
Union after its adoption. If it was competent for the men 
who made the national Constitution to prohibit slavery at 
the time, or to provide for its future prohibition, why is it 
not just as competent for us now? The framers of the Con- 
stitution provided for its amendment in the section which I 
have already quoted. They provided that when an amend- 
ment was proposed and adopted in the manner and form 
prescribed, it should become a part of the national Constitu- 
tion, and be as valid and binding as though originally a part 
of that instrument. 

Had the framers of the Constitution desired the protec- 
tion and continuance of slavery, they could easily have pro- 



— ^-+0 — 

vided ag-ainst an amendment of tlie character of tlie one now 
before us by g-uarding- this interest as they did the rig-ht of 
the States to an equal representation in the Senate. They 
did not do it, because, as the history of the convention 
abundantly proves, the g-feat majority of the framers of the 
Constitution desired the speedy abolition of slavery, and I 
contend that, so far from the Constitution prohibiting- such 
an amendment, it has expressly provided for it. 

Mr. Speaker, there is not a sing-le section or clause in 
the national Constitution which clothes the political org-an- 
izations which we call States with any of the attributes of a 
sovereig-n power, but, on the other hand, prohibits in positive 
and unmistakable lang-uag^e any State from doing" any act 
which a sovereig-n mig-ht do, without the consent of Cong-ress. 

The supreme power of the National Government is rig-or- 
ously maintained throug-hout the Constitution, and it is most 
emphatically ordained in article six, clause two, of the Con- 
stitution, as follows: 

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States 
which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the 
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the 
Judg-es in every State shall be bound thereby, anj^thing- in 
the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith- 
standing*." 

Section elg"ht, article one, enumerates s:eve5nte;en dis- 
tinct sovereig-n powers of a national character conferred on 
Cong-ress by the Constitution, and, as if to leave no doubt on 
the minds of any, this extraordinary enumeration of powers 
is followed by this sweeping- and sig-nificant provision : 

" To make all laws whi^h shall be necessary and proper 
for carryinpf into execution the foreg^oing- powers, and all 
oth^r powers vested by this Coistitutionin th? g-overnmentof 
the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." 

If I understand thic provision correctl}^ it means that 
the framers of tho Constitution intended that the National 
Government should be intrusted with the interpretation of the 
Constitution, nc*- onh' as to th i construction of the powers 
deleg-ated by it to Cong-ress, but to all departments of the 
National Government. They never intended that any State, 



H4 — 



or any number of States, nor the of&cials of State govern- 
ments, should be competent in any capacity to judge of the 
infractions of the national Constitution by any department 
of the National Government, nor of the propriety of any law 
passed by Congress. Any citizen has the undoubted right to 
express his opinions, and criticise the action of the General 
Government or of any department thereof; but neither is a 
State, nor are the officials of a State, clothed with any 
authority to decide as to the constitutionality of any law 
passed by Congress, nor as to the propriety of any act done 
by any department of the National Government. 

It is past comprehension how any man with the Consti- 
tution before him, and the history of the convention which 
formed the Constitution within his reach, together with the 
repeated decisions of the Supreme Court against the assump- 
tion of the States rights pretensions, can be found at this 
late day defending the State sovereignty dogmas, and claim- 
ing that the national Constitution cannot be so amended as to 
prohibit slavery, even though all the States in the Union 
save one give it their approval. 

That provision of the national Constitution which im- 
poses upon Congress the duty of guaranteeing to the several 
States of the Union a republican form of government, is one 
which impresses me as forcibly as any other with the idea 
of the utter indefensibility of the State sovereignty dogmas, 
and of the supreme power intended by the framers of the 
Constitution to be lodged in the National Government. 

In this connection we ought not to overlook that pro- 
vision of the Constitution which secures nationality of citizen- 
ship. The Constitution guarantees that the citizens of each 
State shall enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizens of 
the several States. It is a universal franchise which cannot 
be confined to States, but belongs to the citizens of the repub- 
lic. We are fighting to maintain this national franchise, and 
prevent its passing under the control of a foreign power, 
where this great privilege would be denied us, or so 
changed as to destroy its value. The nationality of our 
citizenship makes our army a unit, although from distant 
States and makes them also invincible. 



— 345 — 

THREE-FOURTHS OF THE STATES NOW REPRESENTED MAY 
AMEND _ THE CONSTITUTION. 

It is objected that if we pass this proposition the requis- 
ite number of States cannot now be secured for its adop- 
tion. In ansvv^er to this objection, I have to say that Con- 
gress has not, in submitting- the proposed amendment, 
limited the time in which the States shall adopt it; nor has. 
Congress attempted authoritatively to declare that it will re- 
quire the ratification of twenty-seven States to adopt this 
amendment. 

I hold that whenever three-fourths of the States now 
represented in Congress give their consent to this proposition 
it will legally become a part of the national Constitution, 
unless other States, now without civil governments known to 
the Constitution, establish governments such as Congress 
shall recognize, and such States, together with the new 
States, which may be admitted, shall be represented in Con- 
gress BEFORE three-fourths of the States now represented 
adopt the proposed amendment; in which event the States 
thus recognized or admitted must be added to the number of 
States NOW represented in Congress, and the ratification of 
three-fourths of the States thus recognized, and none others, 
is all that will be required to adopt this amendment. 

I la}' it down as a proposition which I do not believe can 
be successfully controverted, that neither the Constitution of 
the United States nor the constituted authorities under it can 
know of the existence of a State in this Union, unless it has 
a civil government organized in subordination to and work- 
ing in harmony with the national Constitution. This princi- 
ple has been fully recognized by all the co-ordinate branches 
of the government since the outbreak of the rebellion. In 
this house we have authoritatively declared that a majority 
of the members elected and qualified are a quorum competent 
to transact business. The Senate, at this session, have 
adopted this rule also. Two-thirds of this quorum, then, if 
this decision be correct, as I believe it is, may constitutionally 
pass the proposition before us. If we may constitutionally 
pass this amendment by a vote of two-thirds of a quorum of 



— 346 — 

tills House and Senate as now constituted, three-fourths of 
the States now represented in Cong-ress ma}- constitutionally 
adopt it, PROVIDED the}' do so before any new States are 
admitted, or before a rebel State g-overnment is organized and 
recog-niaed by the joint action of Cong-ress and the Executive. 
I believe this is the true theory of the Constitution. Cer- 
tainly it is the only theory consistent with the national exis- 
tence. If we adopt the theory- that a State once a State is 
always a State, we have no safety from factions and revolu- 
tions. Suppose that within the territorial jurisdiction known 
on the map of the United States as South Carolina, there 
should be no civil g"overnment org-anized in the next fifty 
years such as Congress will recognize, do gentlemen claim 
that at the expiration of that time the old State organization 
would be still in existence, and that in order to secure the 
adoption of a constitutional amendment, such a State ought 
to be included in the number from which the constitutional 
three-fourths of the States must be secured for the ratifica- 
tion of an amendment? If not, then, with what propriety 
can it be claimed as necessar}- to-day? The constitutional 
State government of South Carolina is as completely de- 
stroyed at this moment as though their Representatives had 
not been in these halls, or their local government recognized 
by Congress for the past fifty years. Certainly no thought- 
ful man who has carefully examined this subject will defend 
the absurdity of the constitutional existence of political com- 
raiunities, which we call States, after their constitutional State 
governments have been destroyed by the action of their own 
citizens. 

Speeches were made at the last session, and indeed at 
ever}^ session of Congress since the rebellion, to prove that 
the several acts of secession of the rebel States, being ille- 
gal, were therefore void, and that the State constitution in 
those States not only remained, but that the government of 
such States could at any time be put in motion without the 
consent of Congress, whenever ten or more loyal men could 
be found to assume the governorship and a few of the subor- 
dinate offices therein. Lo3'al citizens of the rebel States are 
fast being cured of this fallacy. Thev have learned bv expe- 



— 347 — 

rience that the g-overnment of the United States is supreme, 
and the local governments in rebel States cannot be put 
in motion without the consent of Congress. The mass of 
men did not at first seem to recognize the fact that while acts 
of secession were illegal and void as affecting the rights of 
the National Government, its jurisdiction and sovereignty, 
nevertheless it was such a crime that those committing it 
forfeited all rights guaranteed them by the national Consti- 
tution under their State organization. 

Mr. Speaker, can there be such a thing known to our 
national Constitution as a State without a constitutional 
government? In my opinion, sir, a State government, to be 
constitutional, must be organized, and act in subordination 
to the national Constitution, and in obedience to the laws of 
Congress. The national Constitution requires the officers in 
each State to swear to support it while discharging the 
duties of any State office to which they may have bee^i elected 
or appointed. If a State does not act in subordination to the 
national Constitution, and its officers do not take an oath to 
support it, and they send no Senators or Representatives to 
Congress, there can be no constitutional State government in 
such State. Add to this the crime of secession, rebellion, 
and levying war, and the taking of an oath by the officers of 
such State to support another, a hostile government, and I 
claim it terminates of necessity, and of right ought to termi- 
nate the existence of a constitutional government in every 
such State. In a constitutional point of view, if there is no 
loyal State government such as I have described, but in its 
stead a government unknown to the Constitution, established 
by the action of its citizens, then, in fact, there is no consti- 
tutional State government, and, of course, no State known 
to the Constitution. The States then in rebellion have no 
constitutional governments. They have civil organizations, 
however, hostile to the United States; organizations which 
are recognized as de facto rebel governments. When the 
rebellion is suppressed there will be no constitutional State 
g-overnments, in fact, in one of the rebel States, and cer- 
tainly the rebel de facto governments cannot remain or be 
recognized by us after the rebellion is put down. The peo- 



— 348 — 

pie residing- within the limits of these so-called States will 
be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, because, in 
point of fact, they cannot be subject to the laws of a State 
which has no State government known to the national Con- 
stitution. 

I may be answered that it is the duty of Congress to guar- 
antee to each State a republican form of g-overnment, and that 
this provision of the Constitution implies the continued exis- 
tence of the State, although its g-overnment may have been 
overthrown by violence or by the deliberate acts of a majority 
of its citizens. Grant it, for the sake of the argument; but 
what will be the legal condition of such State if the minority 
do not call upon Congress to secure them a republican gov- 
ernment? What will be its condition if Congress, in the ex- 
ercise of its constitutional power, attempts to secure such 
State a republican government, and loyal citizens cannot be 
found in sufficient numbers to maintain a State government? 
Is not the condition of such State for the time being- that of 
a QUASI Territory? Certainly, during the time it remains in 
rebellion, and is unable to maintain a State government, it is 
not a State. If so, then, for practicai, purposes, whether of 
national administration or for the adoption of this amend- 
ment. States in rebellion, and without civil governments, 
which Congress can recognize, are not States within the 
meaning of the Constitution, and cannot act upon this, 
amendment to the Constitution, or do any other act which a 
loyal State of the Union may lawfully do. 

In pursuing this argument, we must keep steadily in 
view the fact that the United States are not a confederation, 
but a nation; that the national Constitution is the supreme 
law of the land; and that the government organized under it 
is clothed with the sovereignty of the whole people. The 
first and highest allegiance is due from the citizen to the 
National Government; he is also subject to the laws consti- 
tutionally enacted by his own local State government. If 
there be no local State government in existence, the citizen 
is legally subject only to the laws of Congress. In the ab- 
sence of a constitutional State government in any portion of 
the territory of the United States, where a State govern- 



— 349 — 

ment formerly existed, Congress has all the authority of a 
State government within such territory. If, then, in the 
rebellious States there are no constitutional civil g-overnments, 
are they States within the contemplation of the Constitution? 
I again ask the question, can there be such a thing- known to 
our national Constitution as a State without a constitutional 
government? If not, then the rebel States having no con- 
stitutionally organized civil governments, are not States 
within the meaning of the Constitution, and the territory 
and the citizens residing therein are subject to the jurisdic- 
tion of Congress, the same as citizens in any territory of the 
United States. 



AN UNANSWERABLE PROPOSITION. 

If the contrary theory is true, and a State once a State is 
always a State, nothing can be clearer to my mind than that 
the Constitution ought to be so amended at once as to make 
it impossible for a minority of the States to destroy the gov- 
ernment, as they might do every four years, if the Electoral 
College failed to elect a President and Vice-President of the 
United States. 

In the event of the Electoral College failing to elect, 
the duty devolves on the House of Representatives, each 
State having one vote. Two-thirds of all the States must be 
present, and a majority of all the States is required to elect a 
President. The same rule applies when a Vice-President is 
to be elected by the Senate. These are the words of the .Con- 
stitution: 

"But, in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken 
b}^ States, the representation from each State having one 
vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or 
members from two-thirds of the States." 

Now, suppose that from any cause two of the States rep- 
resented here were not represented, and there were but twenty- 
three States represented in this House, and there had been 
no election in 1864 of a President by the Electoral College. 
The election for President in that event would have devolved 
on this House. 



— 350 — 

Would YOU, Mr. Speaker, have decided, when the ques- 
tion was raised, as it would have been, "Is there a constitu- 
tional quorum present?" that it required the presence of 
members in the House from two-thirds of the States, includ- 
ing the eleven rebel States; or, in other words, that twent}-- 
four States must be represented here, and that it would require 
a majority of thirty-six States, or nineteen votes, to elect the 
President? If you would have so decided, and the House 
should have sustained that decision, and if but twenty-three 
States were present, there would have been an end of the 
government. If we could not proceed to elect a President 
with the Representatives of twenty-three out of the twenty- 
five loyal States, the government would have fallen to pieces 
for want of an Executive. If the duty of electing a President 
had devolved on this House at this session, and but twenty- 
three-States were present, the question would not only have 
been raised as to what constituted a quorum, but the question 
also as to whether we should receive and count the electoral 
votes which, in the event of no election of President by the 
Electoral College, would probably have been sent here from 
several of the rebel States to embarrass, distract and divide 
us. Sir, no loyal man can contemplate a contingency such as 
I have suggested without a shudder. If the theory that a State 
once a State is always a State, is to obtain in the national 
administration, there is no safety or security for the govern- 
ment. I do not know, sir, how you would have decided such 
a question if it had been raised under circumstances such as 
I have suggested; but I have faith to believe that you would 
have'decided as I would have decided, that this House can- 
not KNOW OF THE existence; OF A StATE IN THIS UnION 
WHICH has NOT A CIVII. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED IN SUBOR- 
DINATION TO, AND WORKING IN HARMONY WITH THE NATIONAI^ 

Constitution. Any other decision would have been fatal to 
our national existence. Let us not set a bad precedent now 
by declaring that it will require the ratification of twenty- 
seven States to secure the adoption of this constitutional 
amendment. 

Mr. Speaker, I find ample authority in the Constitution 
for the National Government to protect itself against any 



— 351 — 

action which a minorit}- of the States niig-ht attempt b}- con- 
federating- ag-ainst it. The Constitution clothes Congress 
with the power "to declare the punishment of treason." It 
clothes Congress with all power necessary to defend and pre- 
serve the g-overnment which it created. "Levying- war 
ag-ainst the United States " is declared by the Constitution to 
be treason. A State which, by its constituted authorities, 
supported by a majority of its citizens, enters into any 
"treaty, alliance or confederation," and makes war upon the 
National Government, commits the crime of treason, and it is 
competent for Cong-ress to inflict any penalty it may deem 
expedient. I want the National Government to inflict punish- 
ment so terrible upon the authors of this rebellion that in 
all coming- time there shall be no such rebellion ag-ain. I 
want no precedent established which shall pave the wav for 
a minority of the States and a minority of the people to 
destroy this g-overnment. I want the precedent established 
that the States and people remaining- loyal to the g-overn- 
ment, as disting-uished from those who rebel against it, shall 
be clothed with the sovereignty of the Nation. In this 
way only can we come out of this contest safely, and "obtain 
indemnity for the past and security for the future." 

But I have already detained the House much longer and 
said more on this point than I intended. I discussed this 
question at greater length at the last session, and experience 
has only confirmed me in the views then expressed. Gentle- 
men who have made speeches in this House, and editors who 
have charged me and those agreeing with me on this ques- 
tion, with being practical disunionists, and with recognizino- 
the doctrines of secession, because holding that the lawful 
governments in the rebel States were destroyed by their acts 
of treason and rebellion, will not care, probably, after our 
experience, to repeat such speeches and opinions, nor to have 
them republished to enlighten their readers or their constit- 
uents. 

THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OP THIS QUESTION. 

There is another consideration which ought not to be 
overlooked when weighing the practicability and expediency 



. — 352 — 

of this measure, and that is its financial aspect. Doubtless 
many g-entlemen think this question has less connection with 
our finances and the credit of the country than any other 
before us. Not so. In my opinion, and I know I but utter 
the opinions of many practical business men, the passage of 
this amendment will g-ive the g-overnment a credit, both at 
home and abroad, which no victory of our arms, important 
and invaluable as many of them have been, has yet g-iven us. 
Its passag-e will g"ive a g-uarantee for peace, unity, stability, 
prosperity, power. It will be a pledg"e that the labor of the 
country shall hereafter be unfettered and free, and I need not 
say that under the inspiration of free labor the productions 
of the country will be tripled and quadrupled. It will be a 
pledg"e to the industrious German, and to all the free labor- 
ing" men of Europe who are seeking* homes among* us, that 
they shall no long^er be excluded, as they have been practi- 
call)^ from a countr}' whose climate is softer and fertility 
o;reater than any on the continent. 

I need not detain the House with an array of facts and 
fig"ures to demonstrate the g-reat advantag"e of free over slave 
labor. All thinking- men have examined and comprehend 
the priceless value of free labor. Pass this amendment, and 
the free laboring- men of the North and of Europe will flock 
to the South, so that, in twenty-five years or less, there will 
be four or five producing men in the rebel States where 
there was one before the rebellion; add to this vast number 
the four million emancipated slaves, and you have a free 
labor force which, under the security thus g-iven to capital, 
and the inspiration thus g-iven to labor, will make the land 
to blossom like the rose, and by their energ-y, enterprise, and 
power, the free laboring- men of the South will obliterate, in 
a few years, all trace of this terrible and desolating- war, 
and make it a country which for prosperity and wealth shall 
acknowledg-e no superior, and a g-overnment which for sta- 
bility shall have no equal. 

Suppose your Secretary of the Treasury g-oes into the 
market to-morrow to borrow $500,000,000, payable in thirty 
or forty vears, what will be the first question asked by the 
capitalist? Will it be as to the rate of interest you are will- 



■.>5o- 



ing- to give, or will it be rather as to your ability to pay the 
principal? I take it that that would be the first inquiry. He 
would ask you, "What will be the condition of your country 
and government thirty or forty j^ears hence?" If you could 
answer him, as you might truthfully answer him were this 
amendment adopted, "Sir, in thirty or forty years we shall 
not be indebted, at home or abroad, a single dollar, and then 
will we be the most powerful and populous, the most enter- 
prising and wealthy nation in the world." If you could tell 
him this, and add, as you may, that in thirty or forty years 
we will show the world a government whose sovereignty on 
the North American continent will not be questioned from 
ocean to ocean, and from the Isthmus of Panama to the ice- 
bound regions of the North; and tell him, also, that our sys- 
tem of free labor, guaranteed by the national Constitution to 
all generations of men, with free schools and colleges, and a 
free press, with churches no longer fettered with the mana- 
cles of the slave-master, with manufactures and commerce 
exceeding in vastness anything which had ever been known, 
and a nation of men unrivaled in culture, enterprise and 
wealth, and more devotedly attached to their country than 
the people of any other nation, because of the constitutional 
guarantee of the government to protect the rights of all and 
secure the liberty and equality of its people; if you could tell 
him this, and that such a race of free men would make the 
South and the entire nation what New England is to-day, 
your Secretary could have all the money he wanted, and on 
his own terms. 



WHAT SAY THE UNION SOLDIERS ? 

Mr. Speaker, what say the soldiers of the Union army to the 
proposition before us? Shall not their voices be heard and their 
wishes be respected by their representatives in the American 
Congress? Sir, there are no men in the republic to whose 
wishes and judgment I would more willingly defer on this ques- 
tion than to the brave men who are periling life and all for 
country; to the men who have vanquished the enem}- wher- 



— 354 — 

ever they have met them, saved the nation, and by their 
heroism on the battlefield, and their fidelity to principle at 
the ballot-box, made the passag-e of this amendment possible. 
Almost ever}^ letter I receive from the brave men who are in 
the army from my District contains the anxious inquiry, 
"what of the constitutional amendment; will it pass?" And 
I doubt not that the same question has been asked by the 
constituents at home and soldiers in the field of four-fifths 
of the Representatives upon this floor. What shall be our 
of&cial answer? Shall the g"lad news go forth to cheer alike 
the soldier and the citizen and the friends of the g"overn- 
ment everywhere, that the deliberately expressed will of the 
people is to be respected and enacted into law; that on this 
great question there are no long-er party divisions, but that 
practicall}^ the representatives are as united as the people, 
in demanding the passage of this constitutional amendment? 
If this shall be our answer, a shout will go up from our brave 
men in front of Richmond, at Savannah, and all along the 
Union lines, and throughout the entire country, such as 
never before arose from the hearts and lips of men on the 
passage of any act by the American Congress. 

A MEMORABLE YEAR. 

Mr. Speaker, the year which has just closed has been a 
year of anxiety and also a year of joy. The ordeal through 
which as a nation we have passed, has been a terrible one. 
I speak of the ordeal on the battlefield and at the ballot-box. 
We have presented to the world a sublime spectacle. We 
have tested our strength, and know the constancy and cour- 
age of our men. Such disinterestedness, such heroism and 
devotion to country, the world has never witnessed. Conse- 
crated by a dispensation of fire and blood, the children of the 
republic have grown to the full stature of manhood. Stand- 
ing here, in the nation's council halls, in the beginning of a 
new year, on the threshold of a new era, and in the presence 
of such events, let us comprehend the duty of true statesmen, 
and while legislating for the present, legislate also for the 
generations of men which are to succeed us. The eyes of the 



— 355 — 

wise and g-ood in all civilized nations are upon us. The men 
who embrace and defend the democratic idea in Europe are 
patiently and anxiously waiting- to have us authoritatively 
proclaim to the world that liberty is the sig-n in which we 
conquer; that henceforth freedom is to be the animating- 
principle of our g-overnment and the life of our Constitution. 

DUTY OF THE STATESMAN. 

Mr. speaker, while the Union soldier fig-hts to vanquish 
the enemies of the g-overnment, the duty of the true states- 
man is to provide that the enemy, once vanquished, shall 
never ag-ain be permitted for the same cause to reorg-anize 
and make war upon the nation. Pass this joint resolution,' 
submitting- to the people for their ratification or rejection 
this proposed amendment to the national Constitution, and I 
am sure the nation will adopt it with shouts of acclamation, 
and when once adopted, you know, sir, and I know, and the 
enemies of this g-overnment know, that we shall have peace, 
and that no such rebellion will ever be possible ag-ain. Pass 
this amendment, and the g-loomy shadow of slavery will 
never ag-ain darken the fair fame of our country or tarnish 
the g-lory of democratic institutions in the land of Washing- 
ton. Pass this amendment, and the brig-htest page in the 
history of the Thirty-eig-hth Congress, now so near its close, 
will be the one on which is recorded the names of the req- 
uisite number of members voting in its favor. Refuse to 
pass it, and the saddest page in the history of the Thirty- 
eighth Congress will be the one on which is recorded its de- 
feat. Sir, I feel as if no member of this House will ever live ta 
witness an hour more memorable in our history than the one 
in which each for himself shall make a record on the ques- 
tion now before us. I implore gentlemen to forget party, 
and remember that we are making a record, not only for 
ourselves individually, but for the nation and the cause of 
free government throughout the world. While members of 
the Thirty-eighth Congress we cannot change the record 
which each must now make, and those who do not return to 
the next Congress can never reverse their votes of to-day, but 



— 356 — 

must forever stand recorded, if voting- ag-ainst tlie amend- 
ment, among- those voting- to justify the rebellion and per- 
petuate its cause. 

The g-enius of history, with iron pen, is waiting to record 
our verdict where it will remain forever for all the coming- 
g-enerations of men to approve or condemn. God g-rant that 
the verdict may be one over which the friends of liberty, im- 
partial and universal, in this country and Europe, and in 
every land beneath the sun, may rejoice; a verdict which 
shall declare that America is free; a verdict which shall add 
another day of jubilee, and the brig-htest of all to our 
n-ational calendar. If this verdict is not g-iven by the present 
Cong-ress, I know, and you all know, it will be g-iven by the 
next Cong-ress, and that, too, with alacrity. The decree has 
g-one forth; the people have pronounced it; and now is the 
g-olden hour in which we may all unite, if we will, and in- 
aug-urate a new era in our history. Let no man put forth 
his puny hand to stay the certain approach of the. hour in 
which this act shall pass, or of the g-rand jubilee which shall 
follow its enactment into law. Let no member of this House 
attempt to postpone this g-reat measure, with the hope of 
being- able to circumvent, by some petty scheme of com- 
promise, the plainly written decree of Omnipotence. Let no 
loyal man, in such an hour as this, record his vote ag-ainst 
this just proposition, and thus vote to prolong- the rebellion 
and perpetuate the despotism of American slavery in this 
Republic. 



The following- resolutions explain themselves. They 
show how thoroughly Mr. Sumner and Mr. Ashley were in 
accord on the great questions of that day. 

United States Senate. ] 

Saturday, February 4, 1865. j 

Mr. Sumner introduced the following resolutions: 

THE THREE fourths' VOTE OF RATIFICATION. 

Mr. Sumner: I send to the Chair resolutions which I 
ask to have read and printed. I shall call them up at a 
future day. 



— 357 — 

The resolutions were read, as follows. 
Concurrent resolutions declaring- the rule in ascertaining- the 
three-fourths of the several States required in the ratifi- 
cation of a constitutional amendment: 

Whereas Congress, by a vote of two-thirds of both 
Houses, has proposed an amendment to the Constitution, 
prohibiting slavery throug-hout the United States, which, 
according" to the existing requirement of the Constitution, 
will be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the Con- 
stitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths 
of the several States; and whereas, in the present condition 
of the countr}', with certain States in arms against the 
National Government, it becomes necessary to determine what 
number of States constitutes the three-fourths required by 
the Constitution: Therefore, 

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
concurring-), That the rule followed in ascertaining the two- 
thirds of both Houses proposing- the amendment to the Con- 
stitution should be followed in ascertaining" the three-fourths 
of the several States ratifying the amendment; that, as in 
the first case, the two-thirds are founded on the simple fact 
of representation in the two Houses, so in the second case, 
the three-fourths must be founded on the simple fact of 
representation in the g-overnment of the country and the 
support thereof; and that any other rule establishes one basis 
for the proposition of the amendment, and another for its 
ratification, placing" one on a simple fact, and the other on a 
claim of right, while it also recog-nizes the power of rebels 
in arms to interpose a veto upon the National Government in 
one of its highest functions. 

Resolved, That all acts, executive and leg-islative, in pur- 
suance of the Constitution, and all treaties made under the 
authority of the United States, are valid, to all intents and 
purposes throughout the United States, although certain 
States in rebellion fail to participate therein, and that the 
same rule is equally applicable to an amendment of the Con- 
stitution. 

Resolved, That the amendment of the Constitution, pro- 
hibiting" slavery throughout the United States, will be valid, 
to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution, 
whenever ratified by three-fourths of the States, de facto, 
exercising the powers and prerogatives of the United States 
under the Constitution thereof. 

Resolved, That any other rule requiring" the participa- 
tion of the rebel States, while illogical and unreasonable, is 
dangerous in its consequences, inasmuch as all recent presi- 



-358 — 

dential proclamations, including- that of emancipation, also 
all the recent acts of Congress, including- those creating the 
national debt and establishing- a national currency, and also 
all recent treaties, including- the treaty with Great Britain for 
the extinction of the slave trade, have been made, enacted, or 
ratified, respectively, without any participation of the rebel 
States. 

Resolved, That any other rule must tend to postpone 
the g-reat day when the prohibition of slaver}^ will be valid, 
to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution of the 
United States; but the rule herewith declared will assure the 
immediate ratification of the prohibition, and the consumma- 
tion of the national desires. 

The resolutions were ordered to be printed. 

Letter from W. S. Scarboroug-li, A. M., LL. D., Pit. D., 
Wilberforce, O. 

la aa interview •wiiich we find reported in the Tolkdo 
Blade, Mr. Ashley says " that from my first nieeting-with Whit« 
tier ia 1850, no one of all the great anti-slavery leaders exercised 
a strong-er or healthier influence on my life." Every reader of 
this volume ■will recog-nize how thoroughly Whittier's philoso- 
phy and gentleness took firm hold of Mr. Ashley's head and 
heart. Of all his early anti-slavery speeches before us, running 
W. S. SCARBOROUGH, back to 1S54, a majority are strengthened and embellished by 
striking- quotations from Whittier. During- the darkest hours of our country's history, 
when many faltered and deserted our standard, Mr. Ashley stood erect and firm, never 
failing-, never faltering, and " like a prophet sent to free this world from every bond 
and stain," he unfurled the true republican banner on which was writ: "Freedom, 

THE BIKTHRIGHT OP THE HUMAN RACE." " ThE NATION OF PEOPLE WHO DO NOT RULE 

IN RIGHTEOUSNESS SHALL PERISH FROM THE EARTH." Were there no other reason for 
stamping the speeches in this book with moral power and intellectual force, the quo- 
tations made from Whittier, and the proclaiming- of those maxims of freedom, would 
be enough. W. S. Scarborough. 




COPY OF THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTION BILL, 

Introduced in Congress by Mr. Ashley. 



A LETTER OF HISTORIC VALUE. 



The Publication Committee obtained from Mr. Ashley a 
copy of his first reconstruction bill, and by special request, 
the following- brief statement of the inside history of its 
preparation. 

The subjoined correspondence, with copy of the orig-inal 
reconstruction bill, tog-ether with the recorded yea and nay 
vote by which his first reconstruction bill was laid on the 
table, will be of historic interest to the reader. 

November 22, 1892. 
Hon. J. M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio. 

Dear Sir : It appears to us, that your speeches in Con- 
g-ress and in California, on the subject of reconstruction, 
ought to be accompanied with a copy of at least one of the 
bills introduced by you, for the reorg-anization of the South- 
ern States. If you can furnish us with a copy of one of the 
reconstruction bills prepared by you, with the history of such 
bill, so as to make the record more complete than we now 
have it, we will be under renewed oblig-ations. 

1 have the honor to be, 

Very respecfuUy yours, for God and the race, 




Chairman. 
(359) 



-— 360 — 
< 

Dear Sir : My first bill for the government of the States 
and districts in rebellion, was prepared in June, 1861, before 
leaving- home, to attend the extra session of Cong-ress, con- 
vened by President Lincoln, July 4th of that year. This 
fact tells its own story. It will tell you, that I then had no 
doubt of our ability to crush the rebellion at an early day. 
I need not add, that it took us longer than I, at that time, 
supposed. 

In one of my reconstruction speeches in Congress which 
I sent you, I give in brief the history of the first reconstruc- 
tion bill and its fate. 

Immediately after the House was organized, in July, 
1861, I invited the Republican members of the Committee on 
Territories to meet me at my rooms in Washington, for con- 
sultation. 

At that meeting I laid before them my bill for the re- 
organization and government of the rebel States. 

I soon learned that not one of my Republican colleagues 
on the committee were then prepared to say that they would 
vote for my bill. Thereupon, I resolved to submit my pro- 
posed bill to Governor Chase (Secretary of the Treasury), 
and to Senator Sumner, Henry Winter Davis, and other per- 
sonal friends, for their opinions. After securing their gen- 
eral approval to the 'central proposition embodied in the 
bill, viz.: "That Congress had power under the Constitu- 
tion, to legislate for the government of States and districts in 
rebellion," I went to work to convert one by one, the Re- 
publican members of my committee. 

On the 23d of December, 1861, at the regular session, I 
caused a resolution to be introduced in the House, which 
passed, "instructing the Committee on Territories [of which 
I was chairman] to inquire into the legality and expediency 
of establishing territorial governments within the limits of 
disloyal States or districts in rebellion, and to report by bill 
or otherwise." 

Not long after this, all the Republican members of my 
committee save one (Mr. Wheeler of New York, Vice-Presi- 
dent under Hayes), came to my support, and united with me 
in reporting the bill, as it appears in the printed copy enclosed. 



— 361 — 

No such bill had ever before been presented to the Con- 
gress of the United States. No occasion had ever before 
arisen for such a bill. In undertaking* to legislate for new 
and unknown conditions, we had to blaze our way through a 
wilderness of legal and political complications. Timid men 
hesitated, and men who never move, or who when they do 
move, walk only in beaten paths, were frightened. So 
when by direction of a majority of the Committee on Terri- 
tories, my bill was reported to the House, on the twelfth of 
March, 1862, it was on motion of Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, laid 
on the table, some twenty Republicans voting against me, and 
with the Democrats, to table it. 

The MINORITY of the Territorial Committee denounced 
this bill in terms that, in the light of history, seem weak and 
superficial. 

The only statement made by them in their minority re- 
ports, which contained the shadow of what proved to be the 
truth, was the declaration, "that the bill was intended to 
emancipate at once, and forever, all slaves, and to seize all 
public lands belonging to the rebel States, and lease or give 
such lands, and forfeited or confiscated estates, to slaves so 
emancipated." That was undoubtedly my purpose, and there 
are to-day, thousands of thinking men, who now believe that 
Congress was criminally guilty, because it failed to do this 
act of prudence and justice. 

Even here at home, I was charged by men who called 
themselves Republicans, with recognizing and confirming by 
my reconstruction bill, the secession of all the rebel States, 
and much more of the same sort of shallow sophistry and 
amazing logic. 

In a day or two after my bill had been laid on the table. 
Senator Colomore, of Vermont (who was opposed to my plan 
of reconstruction), came to my seat in the House, and said, 
"Ashley, where do you find a precedent for your bill, to estab- 
lish such governments as you propose, for the States in rebel- 
lion?" I answered him sharply and with some feeling, by say- 
ing: " Sir, we make precedents here," and added, "before we 
get through with this rebellion, we will compel all loyal men 
in Congress to vote for measures far more radical than my 
bill; " and so we did. 



— 362 — 

But experience has taug-lit us, that the reconstruction, 
measures finally enacted by Cong-ress, were not as safe, nor 
as desirable, as raj orig-inal bill, which provided for putting- 
the rebel States in territorial condition, until Cong-ress 
should provide by law for their reorg-anization, a copy of 
which I now send you, so that you may publish it if you 
like. 

I was a member of the select Committee on "Reconstruc- 
tion," of which Henry "Winter Davis, of Maryland, was chair- 
man, and voted in that committee and in the House, for the re- 
construction bill as it finally passed. It was the best, and in 
fact all the bill we could g-et that Committee to report. But 
I thought then, and think now, that we fell short of our duty 
to the black man. 

Yours truly, 

J. M. Ashley. 
Rev. Benjamin "W. Arnett, D. D., 

Chairman Publication Committee. 



United States House of Representatives, ] 

Washington, D. C. >- 
Committee Room on Territories, March 8, 1862. ) 

The Committee on Territories, to whom was referred a 
resolution passed by the House on the 23d of December, 1861, 
instructing" them ' ' to inquire into the leg-ality and expediency 
of establishing- territorial g-overnments within the limits of 
dislo^^al States or districts in rebellion, and report by bill or 
otherwise," have had the same under careful consideration, 
and submit the following- bill providing- for temporary civil 
g-overnments over the districts of country now in rebellion 
ag-ainst the United States, with the recommendation that it 
do pass. 

J. M. Ashley. 

F. C. Beaman. 
A. Scott Sloan. 
Owen Lovejoy. 

G. F. Bailey. 



— obo — 

A BiLjL, TO Establish Temporary Provisional Governments 

OVER THE Districts of Country in Rebellion against 
THE United States. 

March 12, 1862. — Read twice and laid on the table. 

Whereas a conspiracy has been for many years in prog-- 
ress and has resulted in insurrection and rebellion in that 
part of the United States heretofore known and desig-nated 
as the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Tennessee, Texas, and Eastern Virginia ; and whereas, by 
the act of rebellion against the United States, as well as by 
an attempted alliance with foreign powers to wage war 
against said government, and granting letters of marque 
and reprisal, the said States violated the national Constitu- 
tion, which is the supreme law of the land, and which 
declares that no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, 
or confederation, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and 
shall not without the consent of Congress lay any duty on 
tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter 
into any agreement or compact with another State or with a 
foreign power; and whereas said acts of nullification, rebel- 
lion, and levying war against the United States, and their 
alliance under a confederated government have terminated 
and of right- ought to terminate, the legal existence of said 
.State governments; and whereas the loyal citizens residing 
in the aforesaid rebellious districts, on account of the over- 
throw of the State governments and the tribunals of justice, 
both State and Federal, therein, as well as the loyal citizens 
of other parts of the United States, are deprived of all ade- 
quate redress for injuries to their persons and propert}-, and 
of all civil remedies for the redress of grievances; and where- 
as the sovereignty of the United States over the district of 
country now in rebellion is supreme by the express terms of 
the Constitution; and whereas the establishment of a hostile 
despotic government within any part of the territory of the 
United States is incompatible with the stability, safety, and 
dignity of the Government of the United States and also 
with the principles of constitutional liberty: Therefore, 



— 364 — 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives OP THE United States of America in Congress 
ASSEMBI.ED, That the President be, and he is hereby author- 
ized and required to take possession of and to occupy the 
insurrectionary States named, and to institute, establish, 
and protect with the military and naval forces of the United 
States, a temporary civil g-overnment, with such names, and 
within such g-eog-raphical boundaries as he may by proclama- 
tion designate; that said civil g-overnment shall be main- 
tained and continued in each of the districts thus named and 
desig-nated until such time as the loyal people residing" 
therein shall form new State g-overnments, republican in 
form, as prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, 
and apply for and obtain admission into the Union as States. 

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the tempo- 
rary governments hereby authorized for each of said dis- 
tricts shall consist of an executive, a leg"islative, and judicial 
department. The executive power shall be vested in a 
governor, whose powers and duties shall be the same as 
those conferred by act of Cong-ress upon the g-overnor of the 
Territory of "Washington; and in addition he shall, during 
the continuance of the rebellion, have power to do such acts 
as may be necessary to secure the due enforcement of the 
laws and decrees of the United States or of the provisional 
government. The legislative power shall be vested in a coun- 
cil of not less than seven, nor more than thirteen, as the 
President may determine. The judicial power shall be vested 
in a superior court, and such inferior courts as the council 
may establish. The superior court shall consist of three 
judges, a majority of whom shall constitute the provisional 
court of each district; and Congress shall have power at any 
time to remove any one or all officers created by this act; and 
the term of office of the governor and all other* officers whose 
creation and appointment are hereby authorized, shall con- 
tinue until otherwise directed by Congress; and each of the 
officers designated by this act shall be appointed by the 
President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. 

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the legisla- 
tive authority of said districts shall be vested in the governor 



^65 — 



and leg-islative council, whose powers and duties shall extend 
to all rig"htful subjects of Icg-islation, not inconsistent with 
the Constitution and laws of the United States and the pro- 
visions of this act; but no act shall be passed by said council 
establishing-, protecting-, or recognizing- the existence of sla- 
very, nor shall said temporary g-overnment, or any;depart- 
ment thereof, g-ive, sanction, or declare the right of one man 
to property in another in either of said districts; and no law 
or act of said g^overnor or legislative council shall be valid 
which is disapproved by Cong-ress. The legislative council 
shall assemble, after their first appointment, at such time 
and place as the President may desig-nate, and afterwards at 
such time and place as the governor and legislative council 
may fix by law; they shall select from one of their own 
number a speaker, who shall be their presiding officer, and 
they may elect a clerk and sergeant-at-arms, who shall hold 
their offices during the pleasure of the council, and the clerk 
and sergeant-at-arms so appointed may be allowed such 
assistants as in the opinion of the legislative council may be 
necessary, and the compensation of said clerk and sergeant- 
at-arms and their assistants shall be such, as the legislative 
council may by law prescribe, not to exceed four dollars per 
day. If, from any cause, a vacancy occurs in any of the of- 
fices hereby authorized to be appointed by the President, the 
governor or acting governor of the district shall forthwith 
notify the President, and an appointment shall be made by 
him to fill such vacancy immediately. 

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, that the governor 
and legislative council are hereby authorized to take posses- 
sion of all abandoned, forfeited, or confiscated estates within 
the limits of said districts, in the name and on behalf of the 
President and the Congress of the United States, and to 
lease the realty thereof, on such terms and for such time, 
not to exceed five years, as the governor and legislative 
council may by law prescribe: Provided, that all leases 
shall be to actual occupants, who are loyal, and have not 
been in rebellion against the government of the United States: 
And provided further, that all leases shall be for limited 
quantities, not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres to any 



— 366 — 

person, it being- the intent and purpose of this act to estab- 
lish justice and promote the peace, safety and welfare of the 
inhabitants by securing- all in the enjoyment of life, liberty, 
and the fruits of their own labor. 

Skc. 5. And be; it further enacted, that it shall be 
the duty of the governor and legislative council of each dis- 
trict to establish schools for the moral and intellectual culture 
of all the inhabitants, to provide by law for the attendance 
of all children over seven and under fourteen years of age, 
not less than three months in each year; and to prescribe and 
fix the number of hours, not to exceed twelve, which shall 
constitute a day's work for field hands and laborers. 

Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, that all public 
lands in each of said districts, held by said recent States at 
the time of their act of secession, shall be seized, occupied, 
and held b^^ ■'"he governor of the districts in which they may 
be located, in tne name of the President of the United States, 
until otherwise disposed of by Congress. That all public 
lands thus acquired and which may become vested in the 
United States by confiscation or forfeiture by the provisions of 
any law now in force, or which may hereafter be passed, shall 
be held for the use of the soldiers, sailors, and marines, reg"ular 
and volunteer, who have been or may be called into the service 
of the United States to crush the existing- rebellion, and who 
shall be honorably discharged at the close of the war, and the 
widows and minor children of such as may be killed in battle or 
die in the service, or die of wounds received, or by diseases con- 
tracted in the service, and for the purpose of compensating- 
such loyal citizens of said recent States as may sustain 
damages or losses by reason of the said revolt, or by the pro- 
visions of this act, to be distributed and apportioned as Con- 
gress may hereafter provide. 

Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, that the superior 
court hereby authorized shall hold such terms and at such 
times and places as a majority of the judges may from time 
to time determine, and they may appoint a clerk and establish 
and modify rules of practice within each district, and shall 
exercise such jurisdiction, and hear and determine all such 
causes and matters within their respective districts as are by 



— 367 — 

law cog*nizable by the circuit and district courts of the 
United States or the territorial courts and also such as may 
by act of Congress or the provisional leg-islature of the dis- 
trict be made cognizable by the said court, and the final 
judgments or decrees of said courts shall be subject to rever- 
sals, affirmation, or revision on appeals or writs of error by 
the Supreme Court of the United States, in like manner and 
under the same regulations as from the circuit court of the 
United States, where the value in controversy to be ascer- 
tained by the oath or affirmation of either party or other 
competent witnesses shall exceed one thousand dollars. 

Sec. 8. And be; it further enacted, that all loyal 
persons, and all who may be admitted by the legislative 
council to the privileges of electors in said districts, shall be 
qualified to serve as grand or petit jurors of the county in 
which they reside, and they shall, until the legislative coun- 
cil for each district otherwise direct, be selected in such 
manner as the judges of said superior court respectively shall 
prescribe: Provided, that no person who has heretofore 
held office, or a commission, either civil or military, under 
the government of the United States, or any one of the 
States, or any lawyer or any person who has taken an oath 
to support the Constitution of the United States, or any pro- 
fessed minister of the gospel who has been, now is, or may 
hereafter be, in open rebellion against the National Govern- 
ment, or who, in any manner, has given or may give aid and 
comfort to the enemies of the United States, shall act as 
juror, or be entitled to the privileges of an elector, or be 
eligible to any office under the General Government, or in 
either of said districts. 

Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, that there shall 
be appointed within each district organized as aforesaid, a 
secretary, a marshal, and a district attorney, who shall exer- 
cise the powers, discharge the duties, and receive the com- 
pensation for like offices created by act of Congress estab- 
lishing the territorial government of Washington; and the 
governor of each of said districts shall receive for his ser- 
vices $2,500 per annum, each member of the council $1,000 
and the judges $2,000 each per annum. 



— 368 — 

Sec. 10. And be) it further enacted, That the Presi- 
dent may, hj proclamation, until Congress shall otherwise 
direct, establish such ports of entry and delivery within the 
districts of any provisional g-overnment authorized by this 
act as he may deem necessary, and appoint collectors and all 
other needed officers now for other ports in like manner 
appointed; may also appoint or authorize the appointment of 
such other officers as are usual in such ports; and all such 
officers shall have the same powers and discharge such duties 
as like officers in other ports of the United States. The col- 
lector for each port shall receive $1,500 per annum, but no 
additional officer shall receive more than $1,000 per annum, 
and all provisions of law relating- to other ports of entry in 
the United States shall be applied, so far as practicable, to 
the ports hereby authorized. 

Sec. 11. And be it further enacted. That all acts 
and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act 
be, and the same are hereby repealed. 

Mr. Pendleton. I move to lay the bill upon the table. 

Mr. Bingham, of Ohio. I demand the yeas and nays 
upon that motion. 

The yeas and nays were ordered. 

The question was taken; and it was decided in the affir- 
mative — yeas 65, nays 56; as follows: 

Yeas — Messrs. Ancona, Joseph Bailey, Biddle, Francis 
P. Blair, Jacob B. Blair, Georg-e H. Browne, William G. 
Brown, Calvert, Casey, Clements, Cobb, Colfax, Corning", 
Cravens, Crisfield, Crittenden, Delano, Diven, Dunlap, Dunn, 
English, Fisher, Granger, Gridpr, Gurley, Ilaig-ht, Harding", 
Harrison, William Kellog, Killing"er, Law, Lazear, Leary, 
Lehman, McKnight, Mallory, May, Menzies, Morris, Nixon, 
Noble, Noell, Norton, Pendleton, Perry, Timothy G. Phelps, 
Porter, Alexander H. Rice, Richardson, Sheffield, Shella- 
barg-er, Shiel, JohnB. Steele, Stratton, Benjamin F. Thomas, 
Francis Thomas, Train, Wadsworth, Ward, Webster, 
Wheeler, Whaley, Clinton A. White, Wickliff, and Wood 
— 65. 

Nays — Messrs. Aldrich, Arnold, Ashley, Baker, Baxter, 
Beaman, Bingham, Samuel S. Blair, Blake, Buffinton, Camp- 



— 369 — 

bell, Chamberlin, Clark, Frederick A. Conkling, Koscoe 
Conkling-, Cutler, Davis, Duell, Edg-erton, Edwards, Eliot, 
Fessenden, Franchot, Frank, Hale, Hooper, Horton, Hutcliins, 
Julian, Kelley, Francis W. Kellogg-, Lansing, Loomis, Love- 
joy, McPherson, Mitchell, Moorhead, Anson P. Morrill, 
Justin S. Morrill, Pike, Pomeroy, John H. Rice, Riddle, 
Edward H. Rollins, Sargent, Sedgwick, Sloan, Stevens, 
Trowbridge, Van Valkenburgh, Wall, Charles W. Walton, E. 
P. Walton, Wilson, Windom, and Worcester — 56. 
So the bill was laid upon the table. 



GENERAL ASHLEY'S SPEECH 
At San Francisco, California, September 17th, 1865. 



FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO BULLETIN, 



" We give in our columns to-day, tlie speecli made by Gen- 
eral Ashley at Piatt's Hall, last night. In speaking of this 
terse, sound, practical common sense production of Mr. 
Ashley's, we cannot do better than to give the language of 
the Alta Californian, the most conservative newspaper of 
the West: 

" ' The speech of General Ashley last evening, at Piatt's 
Hall, was a great oration, splendid in its ability, and powerful 
in its effect. The auditory were charmed with the eloquence, 
and impressed with the nobleness of the man before them. 
There was no tinsel, no trickery of speech, no flimsiness or 
tawdriness of rhetoric. The applause was frequent, pro- 
longed and enthusiastic, and it represented no doubt the 
general sentiment of the Union people of San Francisco — 
that is the sentiment of admiration for such a speech. His 
eminent position and his oratorical ability give attraction to 
everything he may say, and render his remarks worthy of 
attentive perusal.' " 



MR. ASHLEY ON RECONSTRUCTION. 

In accordance with the announcement, the Hon. J. M. 
Ashley, Congressman from Ohio, and Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Territories in the House of Representatives, ad- 
dressed the citizens of San Francisco in Piatt's Hall last even- 
ing. A very large audience was present. Collector James 

(370) 



— 371 — 

was appointed Chairman, and Louis R. Lull, Secretary. Mr. 
Ashley was introduced to the audience by Col. James with a 
few complimentary remarks, in which he was g-iven the credit 
of having- done more than any other man to carry throug-h 
Congress the constitutional amendment forever prohibiting' 
slavery in the United States. Among- the many distinguished 
persons who have visited our State of late, none was more 
worthy of our regard and admiration than he. He would ad- 
dress us this evening- upon questions of general and local in- 
terest, and whatever may be his views, we could be assured 
that they came from a clear head and a ripe experience, and 
would be deserving of our careful consideration. 

On stepping- to the desk, Mr. Ashley was received with 
prolonged cheers by the audience, and after quiet was re- 
stored, he spoke as follows: 



speech op mr. ashi.ey. 

Mr. President, and Ladies and Genti^emen of San 
Francisco : I thank my friend for his very flattering- introduc- 
tion, and trust I shall not disappoint you. He has been 
pleased to refer in complimentary terms to my political record, 
to all of which I can only say that when the smoke of the bat- 
tle has cleared off, and the prejudices and passions of the 
hour shall have passed, and the motives of men can be read 
in the clear light of history, I hope my record will be one of 
Avhich neither my friends nor my children will have cause to 
feel ashzmcd. 

If in our great anti-slavery struggle, or during the war 
for the preservation of the nation, it shall be found that I 
contributed to the triumph of both, whether by clearing away 
the underbrush or by occasionally felling some of the larger 
timber, I shall be amply compensated for all such labor and 
for the unmeasured abuse of which I have been the recipient. 
But in this practical age it is not so much what a man has 
done, as what he can do which interests the public in him. 
On this point I think I may say with safety, that I am sure 
the States and Territories west of the Missouri will receive 
no detriment because of my visit. 



— 372 — 

Mr. President, one week ag"o yesterday afternoon, as I 
passed from the Pacific through the Golden Gate into .your 
magnificent harbor, and beheld for the first time your beau- 
tiful city, I felt as if one of the earliest dreams of my boy- 
hood had been realized, and that I had been fully compen- 
sated for the toil and hazard of an overland trip from the Mis- 
souri river by stage to Denver, Salt Lake and Montana, 
thence down the Snake through Idaho to the Columbia River 
many hundred miles on horseback and buckboard, thence 
down the Columbia to Portland, Oregon, and across to 
Olympia and Puget Sound, and from Victoria bj steamer here. 

When a boy I had read the account given by Lewis and 
Clark of their explorations, and I longed to see the great 
plains, the wonderful rivers and still more wonderful moun- 
tains, which I find they have so faithfully described. In my 
journey I passed over many points of interest made historic 
by them and by Fremont, Stevens, Mullen, Lander and others, 
but interesting and wonderful as many of these localities 
were to me, none have impressed me more favorably than 
your beautiful seven-hilled city of less than twenty years' 
growth. 

If a man who had never heard of San Francisco should 
enter your harbor as I did, and see shipping from all parts of 
the world so numerous as to make a perfect forest of masts, 
and witness the bustle and activity of business, and be told 
that 3^our population exceeded 125,000 he would naturallj^ con- 
clude that he was entering one of the oldest and most wealthy 
cities on the continent. I cannot tell you how this sight 
stirred my heart with national pride as I beheld in all that I 
saw the results of American genius and American enterprise. 

When the great railroad of the continent, forty miles 
of which I am told is now ironed and which with such com- 
mendable zeal you are pushing forward so rapidly, shall have 
been completed, and our eastern cities of the Atlantic are 
united with your metropolis by iron bands, one of the 
dreams of my early manhood will be realized. Thanks to 
the energy with which you are pushing forward the Pacific 
division, soon the shrill whistle of the iron horse will awaken 
echoes through the canons and gorges oi the mountains, as 
it passes over and descends to the plains on the eastern slope 



— 373 — 

of the Sierra Nevadas. When this is accomplished it will be 
a proud day for California, because to you will be due the 
credit of having" demonstrated to the world the practicability 
of this g-reat enterprise, around which so man}' hopes, present 
and prospective, cling". 

Next in importance to this coast is the mining interests 
of California, and of the States and Territories west of the 
Rocky Mountains. I have visited most of the mining" dis- 
tricts, and my observations have confirmed my judgment that 
no policy could be more suicidal than to sell the mines. [Ap- 
plause.] 

The speaker dwelt at some leng"th upon the subject, and 
repeated his conviction after a thorough examination of the 
mining districts and frequent conversations with the miners — 
many of whom had spent 16 years in developing" this coast — ■ 
that no greater blunder and no greater wrong- could be com- 
mitted by the gfovernment than to deprive them of the mines 
by g"eneral sale. It would put a stop to prospecting", retard 
the development of the mines, and he was satisfied would not 
add $20,000,000 to the coffers of the government. The in- 
come tax accruing" from the present system of mining would 
bring" a larger amount to the treasury in 10 years than the 
entire proceeds of the sale of the mines. Capitalists would 
combine, and both the miner and the g"overnment would be 
defrauded. The result of the sale of our mines would be to 
reduce them to the condition of the Mexican mines, which 
certainly no one desired to see. [Applause.] 

Taking" leave of this subject the speaker proceeded as 
follows: 

And now, fellow-citizens, permit me to pass to the con- 
sideration of a subject which oug"ht to interest every loyal 
man in the nation. 

The last rebel army has been defeated and disbanded. 
The Union arm}' has returned home in triumph beneath its torn 
and blood-stained banners. In its march, the seared and 
weather-beaten veterans shook the very earth beneath their 
tread. I saw them, as they passed in their two days' review 
through the National Capital, and you know that in every 
city and hamlet they were greeted with shouts and tears, and 



— 374 — 

received the homag-e and benediction of the nation. [Ap- 
plause.] 

At their country's call more than a million men volun- 
tarily left their quiet and peaceful homes to peril, and, if 
need be, to yield up their lives to save the nation's life. To- 
day the remnant of thi^ patriotic and heroic army are return- 
ing" to their homes to assume ag-ain the peaceful and respon- 
sible duties of American citizens. This is a spectacle the 
g-lory and grandeur of which dazzles the world with its 
splendor, and is worthy to be written in the Book of Life by 
the recording" angel. [Applause.] 

With the return of this army ends the strug"g"le to main- 
tain our national existence by force o£ arms, and a strug"g-le 
unlike any in our history I'S to take its place. Who shall be 
authorized to reorganize loyal State g"overnments in the late 
rebel States? Shall it be loyal men or disloj^al men? Shall 
educated treason be clothed with the power or uneducated 
loyalty? Shall the men who for the past four years have 
labored with mig"ht and main to destroy the g"overnment, and 
whose hands are red with the blood of my loyal countrymen, 
be entrusted with full power to g"overn not only themselves 
and the loyal men of the South, but, by uniting" with their 
late Northern allies, g"overn us also? 

These are practical questions, it seems to me — and 
questions of tr,anscendent importance to us as a free people. 
If the loyal men of the nation would answer them as the 
returned Union soldiers have answered them, I should have no 
anxiety for the future. If one question could be satisfac- 
torily answered, there would be no serious disag"reement 
among" loyal men. That question is this — What, during" the 
war, has been, and what is now the leg"al status of the late 
rebel States? 

I hold, that, when the people of the thirteen colonies adopt- 
ed our present national Constitution, the old confederation was 
abolished, and the United States became a nation; that the 
national "Constitution is the supreme law of the land, any- 
thing" in the constitutions, laws or judicial decisions of the 
States to the contrary notwithstanding";" that the National 
Government thus crea,ted is clothed with full powers for its 
self-preservation; that the Government of the United States 



— 375 — 

is a g"Overnment of the people and not a g-overnment of thirty- 
six sovereig-n States; but a g-overnment of the people residing- 
in territorial subdivisions -which we call States, and -which 
have State g-overnments, org-anized in subordination to, and 
in conformity -with the national Constitution; that the people 
■who maintain such State governments, and they alone, are 
constitutionally clothed -with the power of g-overning- the na- 
tion. [Applause.] 

I hold that when the people of the States recently in 
rebellion confederated tog-ether in violation of the national 
Constitution, and org-anized and maintained by force of arms 
a DE FACTO hostile government, and the rebellion assumed 
proportions formidable enough to claim and to have conceded 
to it by the United States and by the great powers of Europe, 
belligerent rights, from that hour constitutional State govern- 
ments in each of the States so confederated together ceased 
to exist, and until State governments are organized in each of 
said States in subordination to the national Constitution, and 
are recognized by Congress, there can be no constitutional 
State governments in such States. [Applause.] 

I hold that whenever the people residing in any one or 
more States neo-lect or refuse to maintain constitutional 
State governments, whether it be by abolishing their State 
constitutions and refusing to ordain new ones, or by con- 
federating together with other States, or with foreign 
powers, to make war upon the nation, from that moment the 
governing power, whether for national or State purposes, 
which was lodged by the national Constitution and laws of 
the United States in the people of such State or States, ter- 
minates, and remains in the people residing in the States 
which maintain constitutional governments. In other words, 
that the sovereignty of the nation cannot be destroyed or im- 
paired within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, 
by the action, or the refusal to act of any one or more States. 
[Applause.] 

I hold that the people of any State may alter or abolish 
their State constitutions and governments whenever they see 
fit to do so, and they may refuse to establish others, and that 
there is no power in the National Government to compel the 
majority of the people in any State to maintain a State 



— 376 — 

g-overnment or to elect Senators or Representatives to Con- 
gress, or to vote for Presidential electors. Nevertheless, the 
sovereignty of the United States over the territory and peo- 
ple within such State or States remains unimpaired; the laws 
of the United States are legally in full force, and the alle- 
giance of every citizen residing within the territorial limits 
of the nation, whether in organized or unorganized States, 
is due to the United States, whatever may be the action of 
a majority of the people in any State. [Applause.] 

Those who can see in these propositions a recognition of 
the right of secession are remarkable logicians. 

The speaker then spoke for nearly half an hour in de- 
fense of these propositions, and continued as follows: 

If, in our efforts to reorganize loyal State governments 
in the late rebel States, we permit the question of loyal suf- 
frage to remain an open question, widespread agitation is 
inevitable, and I fear disaster and defeat, not only to the 
Union cause in most of the rebel States, but in some of the 
loyal States also. If however, all loyal men, without distinc- 
tion of race or color, are invited and permitted to vote for 
delegates to the proposed constitutional conventions, which 
are to be or ought to be held in each of the late rebel States, 
and for the acceptance or rejection of any constitution which 
may be framed by such conventions, whatever the result, 
there can be no violent agitation or formidable division of 
the Union party. [Applause.] 

If the loyal whites and loyal blacks of the South, in 
reorganizing loyalj State governments, see fit to limit the 
right of the elective franchise to the blacks who can read 
and write the English lang"ua^e and to all "who have been 
in the military -or rival service of the United States," 
whether they can read and write or not, I think a majority of 
the Union party would acquiesce -- certainly much of the 
excitement which will follow if the colored soldiers are 
excluded would be avoided. But if the loyal blacks, including 
all the black soldiers, are to be excluded, and none but the 
loyal whites and those professedly loyal, together with all 
the pardoned and unrepentant rebels in these States, are to 
vote for delegates to conventions to reorganize lo3'al State 
governments, there will be dissatisfaction among the loyal 



— 377 — 

men of the nation, and justly; and for one I fear the conse- 
quences. [Applause.] If President Johnson should to- 
morrow issue instructions to his recently appointed pro- 
visional g-overnors in the rebel States requiring- them to in- 
vite and see that all loyal black men were not only permitted, 
but protected, in voting* for delegates, and for or against 
accepting" any State constitution which might be framed by 
such conv^entions, nineteen-twentieths of all the professed 
Union men in the North now opposing negro suffrage would 
give in their adhesion to the plan, while all thenhangers-oD. 
of the party would at once become vociferous in its f avor» 
[Applause.] 

Every party, as every army, has its camp-followers. The 
Republican and Union party, since it came into power, has. 
had its full share of them. We have thousands of men in 
the Union party, who, on this negro suffrage question, are 
skirmishing along, near enough to the main column of our 
advancing army to rush in and claim the benefit of a victory 
if we obtain one, and yet close enough to the rear to beat a 
hasty retreat if we should be defeated, to enable them to 
join the enemy without any perceptible change of base. This. 
is political strateg-y. [Laughter and applause.] 

I once asked a man in Washington how it came that he 
was retained in ofi&ce for so many years, under so many dif- 
ferent administrations. "By Heavens!" he exclaimed with, 
an air of triumph, and much apparent satisfaction, "I would 
like to see the people elect a President oftener than I can 
change." Do you suppose any man ever will be elected 
President who can issue proclamations faster than the flun- 
kies and camp-followers of his party will approve them? If 
you do, I do not. [Laughter.] 

You all remember how many editors and politicians were 
indifferent to, or opposed the demand of the anti-slavery men 
for an emancipation policy, before it was adopted by Mr. 
Lincoln. As soon, however, as the proclamation was issued, 
there was a sudden and general conversion, and these very 
men were the first to appear at every public meeting to give 
in their adhesion, and to rush into every nominating conven- 
tion and take the front seats .without a scruple, and demand 
the best offices without a blush. [Laughter and applause.] 



— 378 — 

If Mr. Johnson should, to-day, issue such a proclamation 
as the loyal suffrage men of the nation have asked him to 
issue, and such a proclamation as I hope he will yet issue — 
for I hold he is not committed against 'it — I do not believe ten 
men occupying- respectable positions in the Union party, 
either as editors, or Senators and Representatives in Con- 
gress, could be found to oppose him in such a movement. 

Mr. Lincoln once said to me, that he had more to fear 
from a class of men who crawled in the back door, approved 
whatever they supposed to be his policy while denouncing 
and slandering the anti-slavery men, whom he knew and 
admitted to be the most steadfast Union men, as well as his 
most reliable friends. This same class of camp followers 
were the first to rush in person to the presidential mansion, 
and fawningly approve the new policy, the moment the 
Emancipation Proclamation was issued. They flooded the 
mails with their letters of commendation, and filled five 
columns of their papers in laudation of the new policy, for 
every one used by anti-slavery papers. So it would be now, 
if the President would issue a proclamation to-morrow in 
favor of loyal suffrage without regard to the race or color 
of the voter. The opposition in the Union party would not 
have force or courage enough to make a ripple on the face of 
the smoothest water. [Applause.] 

All I demand in the reorganization of State governments 
in the rebel States, is justice — justice alike to loyal white 
and loyal black — justice to the late rebels also— ^justice tem- 
pered with mercy, if you will, but, nevertheless, justice — 
that justice which secures the personal rights of all, by plac- 
ing in their hands the ballot — the only sure weapon, in a 
republic, of protection and defense to the poor man, whether 
white or black. To me the ballot is the political stone " cut 
out of the mountain without hands, which shall fill the 
whole earth, break every j'-oke and let the oppressed go free." 
''Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but 
on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." 
[Applause.] 

And here I may be pardoned if I digress a few moments 
anjj refer to some unfriendly criticisms which have been made 
by Eastern papers upon extracts which purport to have been 



— 379 — 

copied from a speech made by me on the evening- before I 
left Ohio. 

I have never seen the paper from home containing- the 
speech referred to, and only since I reached your city have I 
read what purported to be extracts from it, and the criticisms 
made upon them. Perhaps I ought also to say that I did not 
expect the few remarks which I made on that night, at a 
private business meeting-, to appear in any publication, as a 
speech. I supposed a notice of the meeting- would probably 
appear, and that some reference, in g-eneral terms, might 
perhaps be made editorially to what was said — nothing- 
more. If I had known that what I said about my interviews 
with the President on the loyal suffrag-e question was to ap- 
pear as a speech, I would have asked the privilege of read- 
ing- and correcting- the manuscript or proof, if it needed cor- 
recting — as speeches not unfrequently do, even when spoken 
with studied deliberation and reduced to writing- by the best 
reporters, to say nothing- of the occasional necessity of cor- 
recting- tj-pographical blunders in the best reg-ulated printing 
establishments. 

Part of what I have seen quoted is substantially correct. 
I did say that "the President assured me that he was 
anxious to secure to all men their rights, without regard to 
color." I also said, and on this point I hope I may never have 
cause to change my impresssions, "that from all the conver- 
sations I had with the President, I was satisfied that he de- 
sired so to administer the government as to reflect the wishes 
and sentiments of the Union men of the nation," 

What I said when speaking of the future action of the 
anti-slaver}' men and danger of division, and the eventual 
defeat of the Union party if the loyal suffrage policy was 
not adopted, I believe to be true and so repeat it now. 

I said substantiall}^ "^that the anti-slavery men of the 
United States had destroyed the old "Whig and Democratic 
parties; that all along the political coast the wrecks of 
Northern statesmen were lying thicker than the blockade run- 
ners from England; that, true to the principles of freedom 
and philanthropy thoroughh^ implanted in their characters, 
they would remember the terrible ordeal through which they 
passed for more than thirty years, and be ever faithful to 



— 380 — 

their convictions; tliat as they had, during- many long-, 
weary years of discourag-ements and apparent defeats, labored 
with a fidelity that never tired, and a determination which 
never faltered, to impress their anti-slavery ideas upon the 
mind and heart of the nation, so for the next third of a 
century, or long-er, if necessary, they would consecrate them- 
selves to the g-reat work of securing- the complete enfranchise- 
ment of the men whom their labors had liberated from the 
thraldom of slavery; [applause] that if statesmen and par- 
ties stood in the way of success, such statesmen would be 
destroyed and such parties perish, and g-o into common graves, 
as the pro-slavery statesmen of the North and the old Whig- 
and Democratic parties had gone before them, because false 
to freedom." [Applause.] 

I did not say this in a violent or threatening manner, as 
I am reported to have done, but with sadness and apprehen- 
sion, rather. 

I believe that by the adoption of the policy which I have 
indicated, a division and conflict such as then appeared, and 
now seems inevitable, might be avoided, and the political 
homogeneity of the nation, and the oneness in principle and 
purpose of the Republican party, be secured. [Applause.] 

I knew that the adoption of this policy would make, as 
the emancipation policy had made, the Republican party a 
unit; and I believed, if it was not adopted, that the old war- 
worn veterans of the anti-slavery army would blow a blast 
upon their bug-les which would call around them a million of 
men, who never followed presidents or parties for position or 
plunder; that they would camp on, the battlefield, as they 
did during their thirty years of anti-slavery warfare, and 
with the banner of impartial suffrage to all loyal men, white 
and black, flj'ing over their heads, that they would, sooner or 
later, vanquish all opposition, by destroying men and parties^ 
and come off, as they had in their conflict with the rebels, 
conquerors and more than conquerors. [Applause.] 

I believed then, and believe now, that divisions among 
Union men would bring certain defeat, and I am sure the 
loyal men of this nation cannot be defeated without my going 
down with them. In my anxiety to avoid this, I pointed to 
the disasters of the past and warned as a friend, rather than 



— 381 — 

threatened as an enemj'. The g-oodbook says, "Faithful are 
the reproofs of a friend, but the kisses of enemies are deceitful. ' ' 
I do not disg-uise the fact that I am anxious for the future of 
the Republican party. I have labored too long" and earnestly 
to secure its triumph to be indifferent to its future now. It 
is only the camp-followers and plunderers who are indifferent 
to political revolutions. Any change is better for such men 
than stability. Divisions and sudden political changes may 
throw such men to the surface — without these, they remain 
mere camp-followers and the blind partisans of power. 

It would not be necessary, if the persistent repetition of 
a falsehood did not sometijnes cause it to be accepted as true, 
unless contradicted, for me to 'refer to a remark reported to 
have been make by the President in reply to what I said, 
■when urg-ing- him to adopt in his reconstruction policy, 
*' universal loyal suffrage, "or, in other words, negro suffrage. 
It is said that he bade me, or those with me, " g-ood morn- 
ing," with an intimation that he did not desire to have any- 
thing- more from us on the question of neg-ro suffrage. I do 
not know how the story obtained currency, nor do I care, for 
that matter. Certainly neither to me, nor to any gentlemen 
with me, did the President, either by word or act ever express 
displeasure at anything- said during- any of my interviews 
with him on the question of negro suffrage. My relations with 
the President are of the most friendly character, and I ex- 
pect them to remain of that character while he continues to 
represent the loyal men of the nation. I know him and his 
Cabinet well. His Cabinet is made up of able, tried and true 
men. [Applause.] A majority of them have held responsi- 
ble public positions during the past four years, and all have 
rendered important services in aiding to carry the nation 
safely through the terrible war just closed. They are en- 
titled to the nation's confidence and the nation's gratitude. 
[Applause.] Their experience ought to render their services 
invaluable. If the loyal men of the nation cannot trust the 
President, with such a Cabinet co-operating with him, I do 
not know whom they can trust. At all events, until Mr. 
Johnson proves false to the party which elected him, I shall 
support his administration. It does not seem to me possible, 
in view of the fact that the slave barons always hated and 



— 382 — 

feared him — in view of the splendid record he has made 
since the war, and the pledges he has made in public and 
private, that he can now hesitate to follow the logic of events. 
When I remember all that he has said, and the pledge which 
he voluntarily made to the black men at Nashville, when he 
promised them to be their Moses, to lead them out of the 
house of bondage, I cannot believe that he will now turn back 
to the worship of the Golden Calf, or that he will ever again 
fall down before the Moloch of slavery. 

That I shall differ, and that many of you will differ with 
the President, his Cabinet and with Congress, on some of the 
new ^questions which must necessarily arise, is more than 
probable. I am not a believer in the infallibility of Presidents 
or parties, and I expect to do some thinking for myself, as 
these new questions arise. After a full and free discussion of 
them, and when they shall have been passed upon by Con- 
gress and the co-ordinate departments of the government, it 
will be time enough to talk of proscribing men in a party sense, 
for opinion's sake, if they refuse to acquiesce. In the mean- 
time I propose, without impugning the motives of any Union 
man, or disparaging those who differ with me, to do all I can 
to have my views adopted by the administration. [Ap- 
plause.] I am free to say, however, that I am committed to 
no theory or policy which I will not gladly abandon for a 
better one; no preconceived notions on matters of expediency 
that I will not yield with alacrity to accomplish that which 
I have most at h-eart, the unity of the republic and the domi- 
nation in the government of the men who saved the nation's 
life. 

In party matters I have enough to do to fight the com- 
mon enemy, without making war upon Union men because 
they may differ with me on some of the new and perplexing 
questions which the war has forced upon us. While a mem- 
ber OF THE Republican party, I shall defend its settled 

POLICY, support its REGULARLY NOMINATED CANDIDATES AND 
ACQUIESCE IN THI{ FAIRLY EXPRESSED WILL OF THE MAJORITY 
OP THE PARTY ON ALL POLITICAL QUESTIONS, IF I CAN DO SO 
CONSCIENTIOUSLY. If I CANNOT, I SHALL OPENLY WITHDRAW 

FROM THE ORGANIZATION. I have always labored for the 
triumph of ideas rather than for the triumph of men, and I 



— 383 — 

hope that during- the residue of my public life, whether it be 
long- or short, I may continue as I beg-an. In any event, 
my friends may rest assured that I will never join the bush- 
whackers or camp-followers for the sake of place and power. 
Whatever other faults I may have, fawning- at the foot of 
power for place and plunder has never been, and I trust never 
will be, one of them. 

The speaker here reverted to the past and spoke of the 
terrible conflict of the last four years, the panorama of which 
often passed before his eyes; and when he thoug-ht of all the 
delays, mistakes and blunders that had been made by the 
government, the awful disasters to our armies, the keeping- 
in power of incompetent or traitorous g-enerals; and notwith- 
standing- all these discourag-ements, he heard the cry of a 
consecrated people still coming- up, rising- and swelling- over 
the tumult and carnage, "We are coming. Father Abraham, 
six hundred thousand more;" when he reflected upon those 
untold sacrifices of a brave and loyal people, he did not wish 
to see anything left undone to gain the object for which they 
had suffered. [Applause.] 

I trust, said he, we all realize the fact that in reorganiz- 
ing civil society in the late rebel States, a broad, liberal and 
wise statesmanship is needed. I am for the most liberal 
policy consistent with the safety and stability of the nation. 
In laying the foundations of republican commonwealths, great 
prudence ought to mark our every step. We should see to it 
that every State is so organized as to secure the equality 
before the law of every American citizen, so that the politi- 
cal communities thus organized shall be a source of strength 
to the nation instead of a source of weakness. [Applause.] 

I know that the brightest jewel in the diadem of the 
conqueror is mercy; yet mercy without justice, mercy with- 
out discrimination, history and revelation alike teach us 
gives no security to governments. [Applause.] I would 
pardon many — perhaps too many. I would rather err on the 
side of mercy, than err on the other side. I am so anxious 
for a nation of men homogeneous in aim and purpose, that I 
would go far to win back an erring brother to his former love 
of the Union and Constitution of our fathers; to the love of 
that old flag which is to-day the emblem of our national 



— 384 — 

power and national glory ; that flag- which is to become the 
flag- of an ocean-bound republic — the flag- of destiny and of 
empire, before which all nations shall stand with uncovered 
heads. Thanks to the God of nations and of men, in speak- 
ing- to-nig-ht of that flag-, as it floats on the land and on the 
sea we can truthfully say : 

" No more its flaming- emblems wave 
To bar from hope the trembling- slave ; 
No more its radiant g-lories shine 
To blast with woe one child of Thine." 

[Applause.] 
Recognizing- the new and responsible duties which the 
war has imposed upon us as American citizens, let us go for- 
ward to the discharge of those duties in a forgiving spirit 
and with thankful hearts ; let us go again to the old altars, 
and take with us our children and our erring and repentant 
brothers also, and swear before Him who liveth forever 
and forever that come what may, divisions, dissensions, rebel- 
lions, interventions and foreign wars — that living or dying, 
no other flag shall ever float above our homes or graves. 
[Prolonged applause.]* 



'■'Col. James, who presided at this meeting-, was at the time collector of the Port 
of San Francisco, to which position he had been appointed by President Lincoln. la 
a short time President Johnson removed Col. James for the offense of presiding. 



SPKKCH 

OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, 

Delivered at Sacramento, California, Friday Evening, 
September 29, 1865. 



Governor Low, who had served in Congress with Mr. 
Ashley, introduced him in a few well-chosen complimentary 
remarks, after which Mr. Ashley spoke as follows: 

Ladies and Gentlemen op Sacramento: I am g-reatly 
oblig-ed to mj friend, the g-overnor, for his very flattering" 
introduction and for his generous indorsement of my course 
in Congress. To-morrow I set my face homeward. On the 
map it looks like a distant journey, yet Ohio, you know, is 
in the very heart of the republic. I cannot speak of that great 
State without feeling emotions of patriotic pride. When I 
remember all that Ohio has done on the battlefield, in 
the Cabinet and in the nation's council halls, to make her 
name ever memorable in history, and to crown with g^lory 
the struggle of the past four years, I feel that to be one of 
her Representatives in Cong-ress is an honor of which any 
man should be proud, and I only wish I were a more worthy 
representative of such a noble commonwealth. [Applause.] 

I am told by some of your leading- citizens that I am to 
g-o over the main trunk of the Pacific Railroad as far as the 
rails are laid, some forty miles. I trust when I again visit 
California, as I hope to do, that I may find all your brightest 
anticipations in connection with this great enterprise fully 
realized. "Wherever I have gone In your State my visit has 
been made so pleasant that I regret it could not be prolonged 
for ten da^-s or two weeks more. But time and tide 
waiteth for no man, and the snows on mountains and plains 
will not wait for me while wife and children are waiting and 
25 ( 385 ) 



— 386 — 

anxiously waiting. I go home to tell our people that all the 
stories told of California are true, and that all have not been 
told. .From your "Big Trees," which are more wonderful 
than the cedars of Lebanon, to your golden gateway of the 
Pacific, a crimson-hued russet-tinted halo everywhere gilds 
mountain, plain and tree, and I am charmed with a climate 
which is softer, and landscapes more beautiful than any 
which have greeted me in all my journeyings over half the 
continent. With a commerce at San Francisco which now 
rivals and bids fair to exceed all the great cities of the 
Atlantic except New York and Philadelphia, and with an in- 
exhaustible supply of iron, copper, quicksilver and gold, and 
agricultural wealth far exceeding my expectations, I am con- 
fident that with all these, and completion of the Pacific 
Railroad, the future of California cannot be doubtful. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Mr. Ashley then proceeded to the consideration of the 
question of reconstruction, on which he had been invited to 
speak. He said: 

On reflection, I am prepared to repeat and to reaf&rm the 
propositions which I made in my speech at San Francisco. 
Let me read from the Bulletin of the 18th, which I hold in my 
hand. [The reader will find these propositions on pages 
374-5.] 

After reading with deliberation the propositions which 
he made in San Francisco, he said: 

Mr. President, I desire also to add another proposition 
in order, if possible, to prevent any misrepresentation of my 
position. 

I hold that no State can, either by legislative act, or by 
a convention of the people, constitutionally pass an ordi- 
nance of secession, or ordain a new State constitution and 
government hostile to the United States; that if such acts 
of secession are passed and hostile State governments 
organized they are illegal, and the citizens of the United 
States residing within the limits of such State do not owe 
allegiance to such government; but if a majority of the 
qualified electors of a State unite with its constituted author- 
ities, and pass an ordinance of secession, or ordain a new 
State government by abolishing their old State constitution 



— 387 — 

and adopting- a new one unknown to the national Constitution, 
and attempt to maintain such unconstitutional g-overnment 
by force, they do in fact des1;roy their constitutional State 
government. [Applause.] 

To me, these propositions are fundamentally rig-ht; they 
embody, as I interpret the national Constitution, the founda- 
tion principles upon which the corner-stones of our national 
political edifice were laid, and upon which it was built and 
must stand. During- the past four eventful years, had we 
recognized, as true, the doctrine that our national super- 
structure rested upon the Calhoun assumption of State 
sovereig-nty with the rig-ht of nullification and secession, we 
should have learned to our sorrow that we had builded upon 
the sand, and that "when the rains descended, the floods 
came, and the winds of the rebellion blew and beat upon it," 
that it must fall, as it would have fallen, if the nation had 
hesitated to strike the hydra-headed monster of secession and 
rebellion with shot and shell to its death, and thus bury as 
they did in one common grave, the great rebellion with this 
fallacious and false political heresy. [Applause.] 

To the impartial consideration of these propositions, 
said Mr. Ashley, I invite your careful attention and invoke 
your considerate judgment. 

[He then made an argument in favor of these propositions, 
which we would like to see some able man of the opposition 
answer.] 

In closing this part of his speech he said, that President 
Lincoln and all the departments of the National Government, 
including Congress and the Supreme Court, have fully recog- 
nized and acted upon this theory. In fact the whole policy 
of the government during the war, has been but a recogni- 
tion of the ideas which I have submitted in these proposi- 
tion. 

Mr. Johnson, by appointing provisional governors for each 
of the late rebel States, has admitted the fact that the constitu- 
tional State governments of these States are destroyed, and 
that new constitutional State governments must be organized 
and recognized by Congress, before the people of such States 
can again be constitutionally clothed as political organiza- 



— 388 — 

tions with local self-g-overnment or with part of the g-overn- 
ing- power of the nation. [Applause.] 

If constitutional State g-overnments still exist in the late 
rebel States, by what authority does the President appoint 
provisional g-overnors in such States, direct the holding* of 
State conventions to ordain new State constitutions and 
governments, and prescribe who shall vote and be voted 
for, and that in the new g-overnments thus to be org-anized, 
they MUST recog-nize the fact that slavery is abolished? [Ap- 
plause.] 

If constitutional State g-overnments have existed dur- 
ing* the war in the late rebel States, and now exist, can the 
President appoint provisional g-overnors and order constitu- 
tional conventions to assemble in such States for the estab- 
lishment of NEW State g-overnments such as he may think 
proper, without regard to the provisions of their old State 
constitutions which prescribe the mode and manner of call- 
ing conventions to alter or amend their constitutions? If 
he can, wh}' can he not do the same thing in Ohio or Cali- 
fornia? [Applause.] 

The truth is, that in the late rebel States there are no 
constitutional State governments which Congress can recog- 
nize, while in California and Ohio there are constitutional 
State governments which Congress does recognize. [Ap- 
plause.] 

I repeat what I said at San Francisco — "that any one 
"who can see in these propositions and the argument which 
I have made a recognition of the right of secession is a 
remarkable logician." 

It is illegal to commit murder, but if murder is com- 
mitted, do I recognize the right, because I concede the fact? 
[Applause.] 

If the people of one or more States destroy their consti-^i 
tutional State governments and establish others unknown tol 
the national Constitution, and enter into alliances with other 
States and foreign powers — and make war upon the National 
Government, do I recognize their right to do so, because I 
concede that they have done so in fact? I deny the right — • 
all loyal men deny the right, but can I or can you deny the 
fact? : 



— 389 — 

[From the consideration of the above propositions, Mr. A. 
passed to the discussion of a question new and interesting- to 
the loyal men of the nation; he urg-ed that great care should 
be used in guarding against any assumption of rebel debt by 
the States lately in rebellion, and insisted that something- 
like the following proposition should be incorporated in the 
several constitutions of the reorganized States:] 

"All debts contracted, whether State, city or municipal, 
by the constituted authorities prior to the Act of Secession, 
shall be valid against this State under this constitution; but 
no engagement entered into or debt contracted by the late 
rebel, confederate or State authorities, or by any city, 
county or municipality, within this State, in aid of the rebel- 
lion or to maintain State or local civil governments hostile to 
the United States, shall ever be paid by this State, or by any 
city, county or municipality within this State." [Applause.] 
Mr. A. said that many might think this precaution 
unnecessary, but for his part, next to securing* impartial suf- 
frage for the loyal men of the South, white and black, he 
regarded the adoption of this proposition as most important, 
to prevent the possibility of political combinations being" 
made for the purpose of forcing the repudiation of our war 
debt or the assumption of the rebel debt. State and con- 
federate, by the United States. [Applause.] 

In my judgment, Congress, with whom this whole ques- 
tion of reconstruction constitutionally rests, should require 
as a condition to the admission of Senators and Representa- 
tives from the reorganized States the adoption in their new 
constitutions of some proposition of this kind, and I am not 
sure that it ought not to be put in the form of a covenant 
between each State and the National Government, and made 
forever irrevocable without the consent of the Congress of 
the United States. 

The nation ought to demand, and I believe will demand, 
some such security for the future. 

Nine-tenths of the rebel debt. State and confederate, is 
probably held by the people of the late rebel States and in 
Europe. Undoubtedly the late confederates would prefer to 
have their debt paid, rather than help pay ours. In my 
opinion if Congress does not provide against the possibility of 



— Se- 
this question being- raised, the Southern politicians will make 
a combination with their late Northern allies, who are now 
almost to a man committed, either directly or indirectly, to 
the scheme of repudiation, and insist upon the incorporation 
of their war debt with ours or the repudiation of our war debt 
also. 

When the proposition is made, as it will be, unless we 
now positively prohibit it, to assume the confederate debt, 
and if not, to repudiate our own, the simple discussion of the 
question will impair our national credit to the amount of 
millions. I need not argue this point. It is self evident. 
[Applause.] 

Three-fourths of the legai, indebtedness of the late 
rebel States is probably held by Northern capitalists. I mean 
the bonds issued prior to the rebellion. 

Cong-ress ought to see to it, that in the reorganization of 
the late rebel States, they assum:^ by positive constitu- 
tional PROVISION the debt of the State prior to the rebellion, 
and by a provision equally positive, that they forever prohibit 
the payment of the rebel debt or any part thereof. This is 
due to the Northern men who are the holders of the bonds 
issued by these States before the rebellion. It is due like- 
wise to the loyal people of the South, that they be not taxed 
to pay any part of the rebel debt. It is due also to the nation 
as the only indemnity for the past which it can now obtain. 
[Applause.] 

If 5'ou own a thousand-dollar bond of the State of South 
Carolina, issued before the rebellion, you may have some hope, 
after her reorganization, of receiving the interest due on that 
bond, and perhaps at its maturitj^, the principal, provided 
the State of South Carolina, after her reorganization and 
recognition by Congress, does not assume her proportion of 
the rebel confederate debt, and the debt contracted after 
secession by her as a State, in aid of the rebellion or to 
maintain her local and rebel State governments. 

If she is permitted to assume her proportion of the con- 
federate debt, and the debt contracted by her rebel State 
authorities, your bond for one thousand dollars would not be 
worth the paper on which it is written, and so with all the 
States recentlv in rebellion. 



— 391 — 

The assumption of any part of the confederate debt by 
the late rebel States would not only lessen their ability to pay 
their leg-al indebtedness, but lessen also the ability of their 
people to aid in the payment of the national debt, which can- 
not be repudiated without national dishonor. [Applause.] 

Before I left Washing"ton I heard more than one scheme 
talked over for the incorporation of part of the confederate 
debt with ours. This is the steppingf-stone to repudiation, 
and I warn the loyal men of the nation to be prepared for the 
efEorts which will be made to consummate this dang-erous 
scheme. 

Many think there is no dang-er in this direction, but I tell 
you that there is dang-er. In audacity anything- may be ex- 
pected of the men who plunged this nation into the recent 
terrible war. Their late Northern allies are equally des- 
perate, and there would be no security for national fidelity 
and national honor, if these two factions unite and obtain 
control of the National Government. [Applause, long- con- 
tinued.] 



SPEKCH 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, 
In the House op Representatives, May 29, 1866. 



impartiai, suffrage the only safe basis op reconstruc- 
tion. 



The House having" under consideration the bill to restore 
to the States lately in insurrection their full political rights — 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said : 

Mr. Speaker. Unless the members of this Cong-ress who 
represent the loyal people of this country approach the prop- 
osition before us, providing- for the restoration of the late 
rebel States, in a proper spirit and with mutual concessions, 
I fear we shall fail to accomplish the g-r^at work committed 
to our hands. I desire to approach its consideration with 
charity for all and malice toward none. I know that I ap- 
proach it in a forg-iving- spirit and with a thankful heart. 
With thankfulness, because the din of war has been hushed 
and the national conflagration extinguished. In a forgiving- 
spirit, because I know how much there is to be f org-iven if we 
would reunite dissevered and broken ties, secure the perpet- 
ual unity of the nation, and bind up its millions of bleeding- 
and broken hearts. 

In all the votes which I have given or may give on the 
propositions for reconstruction, in all I have said or may say, 
I shall keep steadily in view the one great desire of my heart, 
which outweighs and overshadows all others, and before 
which the petty schemes of parties and of men dwindle into 
insignificance and appear to me criminal. That desire is to 
see the States recently in rebellion restored to all the rights, 
privileges and dignities of States of the American Union 
at the earliest day consistent with the national safety, and 

(392) 



— 393 — 

upon such terms as shall secure the power, unity, and g"lory 
of the republic. 

How can this most desirable result best be accomplished? 
In answering" this interrogatory the first question which 
presents itself to every reflecting* mind is this: Has the g'ov- 
ernment of the United States as at present org-anized the 
constitutional power to demand or exact from the people in 
the late rebel States any conditions prior to the recog-nition 
of their recently reorg-anized State g"overnments and the 
admission of their Senators and Representatives in Cong-ress? 
If so, is it expedient to exact of them the terms or conditions 
proposed by the committee of fifteen, or such conditions of a 
like character as may finally be ag^reed upon by the two 
Houses of Cong-ress, as conditions precedent to their resump- 
tion, as States, of all constitutional relations to the National 
Government which were severed by their acts of rebellion 
and war? 

I claim that we have the power, and that it is not only our 
rig'ht but our duty to demand such conditions as the majority 
of the loyal representatives of this Congress may deem req- 
uisite for the safety and security of the nation. I believe 
we have the constitutional power, because I believe the States 
represented in this Hall during- the war and now are the g-ov- 
ernment. If I did not believe this I could not vote for any 
of the propositions before the House or any proposition of 
a like character. 

From the first I have held that when the people of the 
late rebel States abolished their constitutional State g-overn- 
ments and confederated tog-ether in violation of the national 
Constitution and org-anized hostile State g-overnments and a 
national confederate government, and maintained those gov- 
ernments by force of arms until the rebellion became so 
formidable as to claim the prerogatives of a national de facto 
government, and to have had conceded to it by the United 
States and the great powers of Europe belligerent rights, 
that from that hour constitutional State governments ceased 
in each of the States so confederated together, and until 
governments are reorganized in each of them in subordina- 
tion to the national Constitution, and recognized by this 



— 394 — 

Congress, there can be no constitutional State governments 
in such States. 

Mr. Randai,!,, of Pennsylvania. Will the g-entleman 
allow me to ask him who he intends shall form the State 
governments — the people of the States, or who? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I propose that the loyal people 
of each of the late rebel States shall reorganize their own 
State governments and administer them under such rules and 
restrictions as the Congress of the United States, represent- 
ing the loyal people of the nation, shall require. 

Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania. Then I understand the 
gentleman to say that he is willing that the loyal people 
shall form State governments, or shall continue their State 
governments and protect and elect Congressmen as part of 
their duty. Do I understand him aright? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Under such rules and restric- 
tions as this Congress shall require. 

Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania. That is an after-clap. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Now, Mr. Speaker, I hope I can 
go on without any more of these interruptions. From the 
outbreak of the rebellion I have sought to have all the de- 
partments of the government adopt and act upon this idea. 
I have held that the sovereignty of the nation was in the 
people who reside in the States which maintained constitu- 
tional State governments, recognizing the national Constitu- 
tion as the supreme law of the land, and the government 
which it created as the one to which all citizens owed a para- 
mount allegiance. I have held that the sovereignty of the 
nation could not be impaired or destroyed within the terri- 
torial jurisdiction of the United States by the action, or the 
refusal to act, of any one or more States. In other words, 
that the people in the States which maintained their consti- 
tutional relations to the National Government were the only 
depositaries of the national sovereignty and the only con- 
stitutional .governing power in the nation. 

Holding these views, I insist that the people who main- 
tained constitutional State governments, who, during the 
entire war, were represented here, and who are now repre- 
sented here, the people who maintained this National Gov- 
ernment and put down the rebellion, have a right under the 



— 395 — 

laws of war as conquerors to prescribe sucii conditions as in 
the judg-ment of the majority of this Congress are necessary 
for the national safety and the national security. This is 
the rig-ht of the conqueror under everj' law, human and 
divine. If this be not the true theory, then, indeed, is our 
National Government a rope of sand. 

Entertaining- these ideas, at the extra session of Con- 
gress in July, 1861, I prepared a bill embodying- them, but by 
the advice of friends I did not present it until the reg-ular 
session in December. On the 12th of March following-, by 
the direction of the Committee on Territories, I reported to 
this House "a bill to provide temporary provisional gover-n- 
ments for the districts of country in rebellion ag-ainst the 
United States." That bill, on the motion of my then col- 
league (Mr. Pendleton) was laid upon the table by a vote 
of 65 to 56, a number of Republicans voting- with the opposi- 
tion and a still larger number not voting at all. 

At the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, upon 
consultation, it was thought best to have a committee on the 
rebellious States, and the late Henry Winter Davis offered a 
resolution for the appointment of such a committee. The 
committee was raised, and he was appointed its chairman. 

After the committee was appointed, of which I was a 
member, I again introduced the old bill, with such modifi- 
cations and additions as time had suggested. That bill 
which was reported passed both Houses of Congress, but did 
not receive the sanction of President Lincoln, and therefore 
failed to become a law. 

At the second session of the Thirty-eighth Congress I 
again introduced the same bill with some modifications, and 
by direction of the committee I reported it to this House. 
After a number of efforts to modify it so as to secure a ma- 
jority vote, it was lost, and we were left at sea on this great 
question of reconstruction. And to-day we are reaping the 
fruits of our stupidity and folly. I allude to these facts to 
show how steadily the national mind has been marching up 
to this idea, that the men who remained loj^al to this govern- 
ment, who maintained constitutional State governments, and 
who during the war administered this government, are the 
government. 



— 396 — 

Mr. Wright. Will the g-entleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Ashley) allow me to ask him a question? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I would rather the g-entleman. 
would ask me his questions after I g-et throug-h my argument. 

Mr. Wright. I wish simply to ask the g-entleman to 
g'ive us his definition of a loyal man. 

Mr. Ashlky, of Ohio. If the gentleman will ask me 
after I get through I will answer his question. 

Mr. Wright. Very well; I will ask the gentleman then. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I was saying that I allude to 
these facts for the purpose of showing how steadily the 
national mind has been approaching this idea. And when 
this joint committee on reconstruction, composed of the 
ablest men in the nation, made their report the other day, 
they recognized the same idea, to wit, that the constitutional 
g-overnments in all the rebel States were abolished; that dur- 
ino- the war and now said States were not in constitutional rela- 
tions with the National Government. And the man, who- 
ever he may be, who stands up and says they are now in con- 
stitutional relations to the National Government utters that 
which he knows to be untrue. The man that stands up and 
says that during the entire war the rebel States were entitled 
to be represented here in Congress, lays down a proposition 
which would undermine and sap the very foundations of the 
g-overnment. If these rebel States had the right to be repre- 
sented in Congress, and had been represented here during" 
this war, the nation would have been bound hand and foot, 
and incapable of resistance. 

This, then, being the idea adopted by the committee of 
fifteen, I can support this bill. I know that the proposition 
submitted by that committee falls far short of what I expected, 
far short of what the loyal men in the South had a right 
to expect, far short of what the men who sacrificed so much 
to preserve this nation had a right to expect. But if I can 
g-et nothing better I shall vote for their proposition, as I 
have already voted for the proposed constitutional amend- 
ment which was sent to the Senate the other day, . . . 
and I understand the Senate has practically agreed to 
sustain the proposition on representation which was sent 
them from this House a short time since. It will be noticed 



— 397 — 

that in prescribing the qualifications of electors, in one of the 
amendments sug-g-ested by me, I omit the word "male" and 
use the words "all citizens of the United States above the 
ag-e of twent3^-one years." I did this purposely, as I am 
unwilling- to prohibit any State from enfranchising- its women 
if they desire to do so. 

But, Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment which I desire 
to offer to this bill — an amendment upon which I shall ask a 
vote, and to which I desire the attention of the House. 
House bill No. 543, as reported by the committee, requires 
the adoption of the constitutional amendment proposed 
before any State, no matter when it may be ratified, shall be 
admitted here, thus putting- it in the power of the Northern 
States, if they desire to do so, to exclude States which in 
good faith ratified this constitutional amendment and 
amended their State constitutions and laws so as to comply 
■with all the conditions we make. I desire, then, to have the 
bill reported by the committee so amended that whenever any 
State lately in insurrection and rebellion shall have ratified 
this amendment in g-ood faith, and shall have modified its 
constitution and laws in conformity therewith, that its Sena- 
tors and Representatives shall be admitted into Cong-ress; 
that is, that the loyal men of Tennessee and Arkansas now 
elected shall be admitted; but that as to the other States, 
they shall, before being- represented in Cong-ress, after the 
adoption of this amendment and the modification of their 
constitution and laws, elect, or re-elect, if you will, g-over- 
nors and all other State officers, members of the leg-islature, 
Senators of the United States, and members of this House. 

Why do I ask for this provision? Because these g-overn- 
ments, set up by President Johnson, set up over the heads of 
loyal men, have every one of them elected traitors to official 
positions in those States, have elected traitors to this House, 
have elected traitors to the Senate. I insist that this pro- 
vision shall be applied to them, so that when their constitu- 
tions and their laws are modified in accordance with the 
proposition which we lay down, the loyal men of those States 
shall, under the amended constitution and laws, vote for the 
officers which are to be recog-nized b}^ the government of the 



— 398 — 

Utiited States. I ask the clerk to read the amendment which 
I propose to offer. 

The clerk read as follows: 

"That whenever any State lately in insurrection shall 
have ratified, in g-ood faith and irrevocably, the above recited 
amendment, and shall have modified its constitution and laws 
in conformity therewith, and after such ratification and 
modification of its constitution and laws shall have elected a 
g-overnor and the State officers provided for in the constitu- 
tion of such State, including- the State legislature and Sena- 
tors and Representatives to the Congress of the United 
States, under such limitations and restrictions as may be 
imposed by the constitution and laws of such State when 
amended as herein prescribed, the Senators and Representa- 
tives from such State, if thus elected and qualified, may, after 
having taken the oaths of of&ce required by law, be admitted 
into Congress as such: Provided, That neither the State of 
Tennessee nor Arkansas shall be required to re-elect a g-over- 
nor and State officers or a State legislature or Senators or 
Representatives to the Congress of the United States; but 
whenever either of said States shall have ratified the above 
recited amendment, and shall have modified their constitu- 
tions and laws in conformity therewith, their Senators and 
Representatives now duly elected and qualified may be 
admitted into Congress on taking the oaths of office required 
by law." 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. It will be observed, Mr. Speaker, 
that, by the adoption of this amendment, every State which 
ratifies in good faith the proposed amendment to the Consti- 
tution and modifies its constitution and laws in conformity 
therewith, and after such modification elects a g-overnor and 
members of the legislature and Senators and members of this 
House, it shall have its Representatives admitted here. An 
exception, however, is made in the case of Tennessee and 
Arkansas, which now have loyal governors and other State 
officers and loyal legislatures. Those States would not be 
required, under this amendment, to re-elect their officers, but 
the Senators and Representatives already elected, if they can 
take the oath, would be admitted to seats in Congress, and 



— 399 — 

their State officers would be allowed to continue in their 
present positions. 

I think this modification a very necessary one. Let 
g-entlemen look over the South and see the character of the 
men who have been elected as Senators. In almost every 
instance, where they are not out and out open-throated rebels, 
|Who oug-ht to be incarcerated in prisons or exiled from the 
country instead of approaching this temple of liberty; in 
almost every instance, I say, where there have been any con- 
cessions made to lo3'al men, the legislatures have elected 
moderate men for the short term and the most malignant 
rebels for the long term. In view of the fact that the loyal 
men have had no voice in those reconstructed governments, 
have had no voice in their legislation, have been dumb and 
silent under the sway of these traitors who were placed in 
power over them by the acting President, Andrew Johnson, 
the loyal men of those States should have a fair opportunity 
to select men who will truly represent them under the Con- 
stitution and laws when modified in accordance with the con- 
stitutional amendment proposed by Congress. 

I also have an amendment which I intend to offer when 
the other bill comes up, but will not take up time by reading 
it now. . . . 

Let us look, Mr. Speaker, at the condition in which 
we find the country. I hold in my hand the propositions 
reported by the committee of fifteen. I need not read them. 
They have been carefully examined by every member. All 
over the land, North and South, a cry is raised against the 
report of that committee. I ask gentlemen if they can put 
their hands on a single page of human history where, after 
a rebellion has been put down of the character of the one we 
had to deal with, they can find the conquerors making propo- 
sitions so mild, so conciliatory, and so merciful as these made 
by the committee of fifteen — propositions as applicable to 
the conquerors as the conquered. Yet we find men in this 
Hall, men all over the South, men holding high positions in 
the government before the rebellion, and high positions in 
the rebel government, who have the effrontery to tell the 
people of this country that they will not accept such condi- 
tions. If they will not and we permit them to dictate their 



— 400 — 

own terms, is not this a practical surrender on the part of 
the conqueror to the conquered? Suppose our position had 
been reversed; suppose the anti-slavery men of this country 
had gone into a rebellion as the South did, without a pretext, 
without cause, when the}' had a majority in this and the 
other branch of Cong-ress, simply because a pro-slavery man 
had been elected President. Suppose this to have been the 
case, that State after State had seceded, had captured the 
forts of the United States, and had made war on the Union 
for four years, destroying* haif a million of lives, as well as 
running- up a debt of over $3,000,000,000 for posterity to pay. 
I say suppose this to have been the case, do you believe any 
such propositions would have been made by those men when 
they had conquered as have been made by this government, 
nay, proposed by this very House? Do you suppose that 
leading anti-slavery men, like Garrison, Phillips, Beecher, 
Greeley, and Gerrit Smith, would have been sent for by a pro- 
slavery executive to be counseled with and sent home as pro- 
visional governors to organize States over the heads of the 
only loyal men in those States? Do you think there would 
have been any such stupid performance if the North had 
been in rebellion? No, sir, we would have been stripped 
naked, as was said by Henry A. Wise the other evening at 
Alexandria. 

My friend from Iowa in front of me (Mr. Price) hands 
me the paper containing the extract I am quoting from mem- 
ory, and I will read it: 

"If I had triumphed," said Governor Wise, "I should 
Tiave favored stripping them naked. [Laughter.] Pardon! 
They might have appealed for pardon, but I would have seen 
them damned before I would have granted it. For myself, 
the boot being on the other leg, I take no oaths; I ask no 
pardons! [Prolonged cheers.] I give 3'ou that brigade — 
the old, the lasting, the enduring Wise brigade. [Cheers 
and applause.]" 

Do you suppose if the rebellion in the North to which 
I have referred had been put down, any traitor would have 
been permitted to walk in Boston and utter such treason 
against the government? No, sir; and yet we are denounced 
in this Congress as a rump Congress, as Jacobins, as sangui- 



— 401 — 

nary men. Why? Because we ask, in restoring- the g-overn- 
ments of the Southern States, that our friends shall have a 
fair share in the administration of their State g-overnments, 
and that the leading" traitors shall be punished. 

Sir, under the administration, as matters are now g-oing, 
not a sing"le, solitary traitor will be punished. Rebel soldiers 
that were in prison have all been liberated, while the soldiers 
of the g"rand Union Army who are in prison for the slightest 
offenses remain, and you cannot get them pardoned out. 
These are unpleasant facts, but I could not pass them and do 
my duty without referring" to them. 

What do we ask? The loyal men of the nation ask that 
in the restoration of the rebel States the men who were our 
friends and allies during" the rebellion — the loyal men — shall 
be clothed with the power of the local and State governments 
of the South. Is this asking" too much? If this is not 
accorded to us, if these men are to come back here, the loyal 
oath to be repealed as is recommended, and no conditions 
to be exacted; if these men are to come back here next year 
and take possession of the g"overnment, so far from treason 
being" punished and made odious it will only prove to have 
been a passport to favor and to power. 

Sir, has it come to this? Can the unselfish heroism and 
bravery, the devotion and sacrifices of our soldiers and the 
loyal men and women of the nation so soon be forgotten? 
Are the men who conducted this nation safely through the 
most terrible war recorded in history to admit, now that the 
rebellion is over, that they are incapable of administering" 
the government in time of peace? Are the men who fought 
the opponents of this government on the battlefield and at 
the ballot-box for the last four years, and everywhere van- 
quished them, now to stack their arms and surrender them- 
selves without condition to their prisoners? That will be 
the state of affairs if the present reconstruction policy of the 
administration succeeds. If in our work of reconstruction 
we do not secure the rights of loyal men who were our 
friends and allies in the late rebel States, we shall come short 
of our duty and be guilty of a blunder which, in such an 
hour as this, is worse than a crime. Sir, I want the loj'al 
26 



— 402 — 

men of the nation, who saved it in its hour of peril, not only 
to administer the National and State Governments, South as 
well as North, but to say who shall vote for their law-makers 
in those States consecrated by the blood of half a million men. 
Our friends are mistaken, honestly mistaken I g-rant you, 
but nevertheless mistaken, when they say there are no loyal 
men in the South. Sir, I know the South better than that, 
and I stand here to say that I do not believe at the time the 
ordinances were passed in the eleven rebel States that more 
than two States — South Carolina and Mississippi — and 
possibly not more than one, would have voted by ballot at any 
fairly conducted election for secession and rebellion. I grant 
that after the rebellion was inaugurated a majority were car- 
ried into it, and that a majority in all those States, unless it 
be in Tennessee and Arkansas, and perhaps even these, are 
hostile at the present time to this government. But there 
are large numbers of men in those States who are loyal to 
the government, and I desire to strengthen their hands by 
giving the black man the ballot. In that way only can we 
strengthen these men and preserve the local State govern- 
ments. The unfortunate reconstruction "experiment" of 
the administration has put the loyal men, black and white, 
under the foot of the traitor in nearly all the late rebel States, 
and they are powerless and compelled to submit, because the 
government has bound them hand and foot and turned them 
over to the tender mercies of their enemies and ours. Sir, it 
is the cause of the loyal white and black men of the South 
which I plead; it is their cause which this Congress is fight- 
ing. What I demand, and what this Congress demands, is 
that the loyal men of the South shall administer the local 
and State governments of the South; that none shall hold the 
of&ces, national and State, but loyal men. We have the 
right to demand this. 

Sir, if we would have loyal representatives here, we 
must first secure a loyal constituency at their backs. It is 
idle to talk of IojkI representatives and disloyal constituents. 
It is not worth while to deceive ourselves on this point, or 
attempt to deceive others. The solution of this great ques- 
tion of restoration is the work of statesmen, not of dema- 
gogues. All over the land demagogues are clamorous, and 



— 403 — 

denounce Congress because they do not at once declare the 
late rebel. States restored to all their constitutional relations 
to the National Government and at once admit their disloyal 
representatives, who have the unblushing- hardihood to 
approach and demand admission to this temple. Every v.^here 
demag-og-ues and traitors unite in denouncing- the Cong-ress 
of the United States because they have g-iven six months to 
the consideration of this new and difficult problem of reor- 
ganizing- constitutional State g-overnments in eleven rebel 
States. Why, sir, we have spent six months on the tax bill, 
a subject with which we are familiar, and which has been in 
the hands of one of the ablest and most experienced com- 
mittees of this House, yet with all the aid of the Treasury 
Department and the special commission authorized by the 
last Cong-ress we could not g-et throug-h with the tax bill 
until last evening-. This question of taxation is an old and 
familiar one, and if we commit a blunder time will develop it 
and leg-islation can correct it. But this question of recon- 
struction is a new and perplexing- question; a question which 
oug-ht to command the best ability of the nation, because we 
are to walk in new and unknown paths, paths which have 
never been illuminated by the footprint of the statesmen 
who have preceded us. If we commit a blunder it may be 
fatal, at least for a g-eneration. This Cong-ress is honestly 
laboring- to secure an early restoration, of these States, and 
while I do not believe the propositions reported by the com- 
mittee are all the loyal men of the South had the rig-ht to 
expect and demand at our hands, I shall vote for them if I 
can g-et nothing- better. 

But it is said that there are no loyal men in the South; 
that all were swept into this rebellion, and we are coolly and 
refreshing-ly told that the oath must be modified in order that 
rebels may be appointed to office. Sir, this claim that there 
are no loyal men in the South is a fallacy. I have lived in 
the South for years, and I know that there is not a State in 
which loyal men cannot be found to fill all the offices of the 
State and National Government. If they have not, then I 
would import them. I would do as I advised Mr. Lincoln to 
do in 1861, when he had up the question of appointino- a 
postmaster at Louisville. He happened one morning- when I 



— 404 — 

was in his room, and the case was up, to do me the honor 
to ask me what I would do. There was a loyal man who had 
been always faithful to our ideas an applicant for the place, 
and also a new convert. I said, " If I had the appointing- 
power, and there were but one man in the State who had 
voted for me or voted to maintain our ideas, I would appoint 
him to the best office in the State in the g-if t of the Executive, 
and if he could not write his name I would appoint and pay 
a clerk out of the secret service fund to sig-n his name for 
him." You need not talk to me about there not being- loyal 
men enough in the South to discharge the duties of all the 
offices there. It is a fallacy. Many honest men of my own 
personal acquaintance went into the rebellion believing- it to 
be right; and before the close of the war and since the close 
of the war, have come out of it just as honest, and are satis- 
fied that it was wrong. ' 

Sir, I do not believe, with all the political heresy which 
has been taught at the South for the past thirty years, with 
all the political iniquity which has been taught in the name 
of religion and in the name of Christ in the South by men 
professing- to teach the gospel; I do not believe that all this, 
with the war and all the terrible consequences which have 
followed in its train, has been enough to obliterate from the 
South an entire love for the old flag- and the old Union. 

I know that there are men in the South everywhere 
capable of filling- all the offices. My judgment has been 
strengthened on this point by many letters which I have 
received during- the war and since the war. A private soldier 
in the Union Army wrote me a letter after Sherman had 
passed through Georg-ia, in which the following beautiful 
and touching incident was related: "At one of our military 
posts where thousands came to receive rations from the 
government which they were madly fighting to destro}', there 
came one morning a tall, elderly lady of commanding ap- 
pearance, and of evident culture and refinement, asking for 
bread. When it was handed to her by a brave boy in blue 
who stood proudly beneath the stars and stripes, she betrayed 
emotions which she could not suppress, and the tears stole 
down her cheeks as she said, ' Little did I think three years 
ago, when decking m}' three sons for the war, that I would 



— 405 — 

ever come to this; then I had husband, sons, home, and all 
that heart could wish; now I am homeless, childless, a widow, 
and a beg-g-ar, asking- alms of the g-overnment which we 
sought to destroy. But it is all rig-ht. It is the punishment 
meted out by Providence for our sins, and I submit.' " 

Sir, there are thousands of just such mothers as this in 
every State in the South to-day, and there is not a loyal man 
or woman in this nation who would not do all in their power 
to alleviate their wants and bind up their bleeding" and broken 
hearts. 

There is another beautiful incident which I must not 
omit. Last summer, when the convention met in North 
Carolina, in response to the acting" President's proclamation, 
to reorg-anize a constitutional State g-overnment, Mr. Reade, 
the president of that convention, on taking- the chair, uttered 
words which thrilled the continent. I have no lang-uage to 
tell you, Mr. Speaker, how they touched my heart as I read 
them on the shores of the Pacific. I know that every loyal 
man in this nation called down benedictions on his head. 
These are his golden words: 

" Fellow-citizens, we are going home. Let painful recol- 
lections upon our late separation and pleasant memories of 
our early union quicken our footsteps toward the old man- 
sion, that we may grasp hard again the hands of friendship? 
which stand at the door; and, sheltered by the old home- 
stead which was built upon a rock, and has weathered the 
storm, enjoy together the long, bright future which awaits 
us." 

Sir, every loyal Representative in this Hall stands ready 
with open hand to-day to welcome all who thus speak from 
the heart; and, sir, whatever of local interest or of prejudice 
or of passion may have carried an erring brother into this 
rebellion, if he but set his face toward the old homestead, 
uttering such brave words as these, I will run to meet him 
afar off, and for him the fatted calf shall be slain. But I do 
not propose to start out laden down with pardons and with 
the fatted calf smoking- hot from the oven and hunt up and 
thrust both pardons and feast upon unrepentant, malignant, 
and defiant rebels. Nor do I propose to stand before them, 
hat in hand, and ask them on what terms they propose to 



— 406 — 

return to the old mansion. Sir, every rebel shall resume his 
citizenship upon the terms and conditions prescribed by the 
loyal men of this nation, or, so far as I am concerned, he shall 
remain an alien forever. 

Mr. Speaker, to me the only vital and living- question 
g-rowing- out of this subject of reconstruction is whether the 
loyal men of the South, whether all citizens of the United 
States residing- in the South, shall have the rig-ht of the bal- 
lot. And when I say all loyal citizens I mean all, black as 
well as white. I hold that every man born in the United 
States is a citizen of the United States, and that every citizen, 
native-born or naturalized, has the right to a voice in the 
Government under which he lives. It is a natural rig-ht, a 
divine rig-ht if you will, a right of which the g-overnment 
cannot justly deprive any citizen except as a punishment for 
crime. Sir, every American citizen of the age of twenty- 
one years, not convicted of an infamous offense, has the right 
to vote for or against those who are to make and administer the 
laws under which he lives. That is the high prerog-ative of 
every American citizen. Anything- short of that is but a 
mockery. 

I want this Cong-ress, before it shall adjourn, to insist 
that every man who has been loyal to the g-overnment in the 
South, whatever his race or color, shall have the right to the 
ballot. We now have the g-olden opportunity. If you do not 
guaranty these precious rights of the citizen now, you leave 
the great work before us unfinished ; and -I warn you that 
agitation will follow your refusal to enact justice, and that 
there shall be no repose until every citizen of the republic is 
enfranchised and stands equal before the law. Shall we 
falter, Mr. Speaker, in this sublime hour of victory which 
God has given us, or shall we finish the work which He has 
committed to our hands by securing the complete enfranchise- 
ment of all citizens of the United States ? 

The voice of every friend of this country in Europe, as 
it comes to us across the sea, cries out to us to enfranchise 
the men who in the late struggle were our friends and our 
allies. From Switzerland, the grand republic of the Old 
World, there come to us words of counsel and wisdom which 
w^e ought not to disregard. From every land beneath the 



— 407 — 

sun, where liberty is loved and human hearts have been 
touched by our heroic strugg-le, there comes to us a plea that 
in reconstructing- this g-overnment we shall first of all see to 
it that justice is the basis upon which we build. 

And better than all this, from the loyal men of the South, 
both white and black, there comes up to us the prayer that 
we will see to it that they have justice ; that we will not 
falsify the pledg-es which the nation has made. Sir, do 
gentlemen expect that we can make the pledg-es we have 
made, and then turn these people over to the tender mercies 
of their enemies and ours without calling- down upon us the 
execrations and denunciations of all right-thinking- men? If 
they do, they are mistaken. Shall we hear and answer these 
words of counsel and wisdom and the praj^er of our friends 
and allies, or shall we turn for counsel and advice to our late 
enemies? 

We are as a nation either to go forward in the great work 
of progress or g-o backward ; we cannot stand still. And I am 
desirous to know whether this Congress is g-oing- to attempt 
the work of staying- the g-reat anti-slavery revolution which 
has swept over the country and obliterated all the pro-slavery 
landmarks erected by parties and by men. Sir, I have faith 
to believe that neither President nor Cabinet nor Congress 
can long stay with their puny efforts the grand decree of the 
nation. He who attempts it, be he President, Cabinet 
minister, or statesman, will fall before its advancing power, 
and his political grave will be marked by the skeletons of 
those who for the past quarter of a century, having betrayed 
liberty, were wrecked along the political coast and to-day lie 
unburied and unhonored because there were none so base as 
to do them reverence. 

Sir, I know that our hour of triumph may be delayed ; but 
I have faith to believe that we cannot be defeated. Let the 
ballot be placed in the hands of every loyal man in the South, 
and this nation is safe — safe from rebellion, safe from repu- 
diation, safe from a war of races, safe from the domination 
of traitors in its councils. Sir, without the ballot in the 
hands of every loyal man the nation is not safe. The ballot 
is the only sure weapon of protection and defense for the poor 
man, whether white or black. It is the sword and buckler 



— 408— 

and shield before which all oppressions, aristocracies and 
special privileg-es bow. Sir, Mr. Lincoln, in a letter written 
to Governor Hahn, of Louisiana, pleading- for the rig-ht of 
the black man to vote, said most beautifully, and as I be- 
lieve, prophetically, that "in some trying" time the vote of 
the black man may serve to keep the jewel of liberty in the 
family of freedom." 

I believe this most fully ; and believing- it, I would be 
false to myself and false to my country if I did not demand 
it. If I were a black man, with the chains just stricken from 
my limbs, without a home to shelter me or mine, and you 
should offer me the ballot, or a cabin and forty acres of cot- 
ton land, I would take the ballot, conscious that, with the 
ballot in my hand, rig-htly used, all else should be added unto 
me. 

Sir, I would like to know whether there is one professed- 
ly loyal man in this nation who would rather confer the bal- 
lot upon a traitor to his country than upon a loyal black 
man who has foug-ht to save the republic. I should like to 
hear such a man speak out here or elsewhere. Sir, however 
much brazen-faced impudence there is in every public assem- 
bly, there is no man in this House so bold or so bad as to 
make such a declaration. 

Mr. Lej B1.0ND. With my colleag-ue's permission, I wish 
to ask him a question. I infer from his remarks that he is in 
favor of neg-ro suffrag-e. I wish to know whether he is in 
favor of negro suffrag-e in the States. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Everywhere. 

Mr. Le Blond. In the State of Ohio? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Everywhere. 

Mr. Le Blond. Then I wish to ask the g-entleraan an- 
other question : does he claim that Cong-ress has the power 
to confer the right of suffrag-e upon neg-rocs in the States? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Well, sir, I do not intend to put 
myself on record ag-ainst the rig-ht of Cong-ress to do that. I 
have no time now to argue the point with my colleag-ue ; 
but I will say to him that when the time comes for the Ameri- 
can Cong-ress to take action on the question, I will be ready 
to speak. I will not say now whether I would vote for or 
against such a proposition. 



— 409 — 

Mr. Lb Bi^ond. I wish to ask mv colleag-ue one mors 
question : is he in. favor of the report of the reconstruction 
committee? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. "Well, sir, I am voting- for it. 

Mr. IvK Blond. Is my colleag-ue in favor of keeping- the 
States out until the conditions prescribed in that report are 
complied with? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If mj colleague had listened to 
my remarks and to the amendment which I presented, he 
would not have felt called upon to interrupt me to put this 
inquiry. 

Mr. Le Blond. I would like to inquire why the g-entle- 
man yields the question of suffrag-e, as he does, in supporting; 
the proposition of the committee. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Because I cannot get it. [Laug-h- 
ter.] Is not that a fair answer? 

Mr. Le Blond. That is honest. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Now, sir, let us look at this ques- 
tion for a moment from the standpoint of the black man. 
And he who will not look at this question from the stand- 
point of the black man is unfit to sit in judg-ment on this 
question. Let me ask g-entlemen on the other side, with 
whom I always deal fairly, suppose your ancestors had been in 
bondag-e for two hundred years, and that this nation — this 
nation of hypocrites and liars for more than eighty years — 
had enslaved and degraded you as no people were ever de- 
graded before — making merchandise of your entire race, 
while professing Christianity and a love for liberty. I say 
suppose this to have been your condition when this war be- 
gun — a war inaugurated on the part of your masters to 
establish a government which should perpetuate your bond- 
age — and after becoming satisfied that we could not conquer 
your masters without your aid, we had invited you in the 
hour of the nation's agony to join our army and help put 
down the rebellion, promising you your freedom, and that you 
had come two hundred thousand strong, and had stayed, if 
you did not turn, the tide of battle, thereby giving us the 
victory. I say suppose this to be the case, and after the 
rebellion had been crushed and your masters were put down 
by your aid, we had coolly and unblushingly turned you over 



— 410 — 

to the control of local State g-overnments administered by 
jour late masters. I ask, what kind of justice you would call 
that? 

Mr. Ei^dridge. I wish to inquire 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If you will answer that question 
I will yield the floor. 

Mr. Eldridge. Was that so from the beg-inning-? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. It was so with me. I do not 
know what issue the g-entleman had. So far as his votes 
indicated, his position was on the other side. 

Mr. Eldridge. Was that the position of Mr. Lincoln 
and those who supported him from the beg^inning- of the war? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I do not think it was at the be- 
g-inning-. 

Mr. Eldridge. Was it at the end of the war? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Yes, sir. 

The Speaker. The gentleman's time has expired. 

Mr. Garfield. I move that my colleag-ue's time be ex- 
tended. 

Mr. Le Blond. He is entitled to credit, and deserves 
extension. 

There was no objection, and it was ordered according-ly. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want my friend 
from Ohio, or an}^ one on that side of the House, to tell me, 
if after having- foug-ht to save the nation under the promise 
of freedom and the protection of his life and property, what 
would be his feelings toward those who committed the great 
crime of turning him over to the control of his enemies and 
ours? What would you say of such a government? What 
would you say of the honor of its rulers? Sir, I know not 
what other men would say, but if I were a black man I would 
not submit. I would rather be the slave of one man who had 
a pecuniary interest in my health and life than to be the 
slave of a State whose government was controlled by 
MY LATE MASTERS. It is a terrible thing to be the slave of a 
State whose government is administered in the spirit of caste. 
Sir, if the members of this House could witness what I have 
often seen, free men made the slave of the State, they would 
know how intolerable is such a condition, and would not 
sleep soundly if by their vote they permitted four million 



— 411 — 

people, who were our allies and friends in this late war, to 
become the slaves of a State whose g-overnment was in the 
hands of rebels. 

Mr. Higby. They have re-enacted the same laws. 

Mr. Ashi.e;y, of Ohio. These laws have been re-enacted 
in some of the so-called reconstructed States, as my friend 
from California remarks. Sir, I repeat, if this g-reat injus- 
tice was done me I would not submit; and I tell you that these 
four million people, soon to increase to many millions, will 
not submit to such monstrous legislation. If I were a black 
man I v/ould gather go into rebellion and revolution than sub- 
mit to such an intolerable wrong-. I would take my children 
and g"o daily with them to the altar and swear eternal hos- 
tility to those who thus betra^^ed me. I would consecrate 
all the powers of mind and strength which I possessed to 
brand those with infamy who had been so false to my people, 
and to put them into history "along with those who, in every 
generation, have disgraced the world as the betrayers of 
mankind and enemies of the human race. 

Sir, nothing can give such security to the poor man as 
the ballot. The prejudice of caste is strong, but the ballot 
will soon banish its baneful spirit. If in the days of Know- 
Nothingism the Irishman had not had the protection which 
the ballot alone could give him his condition would have 
been intolerable. How much more intolerable the condition 
of the black man without the ballot when completely under 
the dominion of his late slave-master! 

Mr. E1.DRIDGK. Let me ask a question. 

Mr. ASHI.UY, of Ohio. Not now. When Richmond 
fell, when Lee surrendered, when the last rebel army sur- 
rendered, and the bells all over the North were ringing out 
their peals of joy, who were the men that stood up first in 
this Union and asked for mercy to a fallen foe? The men 
-who had a right to speak, Garrison, Phillips, Beecher, 
Greeley, Bryant, and Gerrit Smith — the men of heart, of 
intellect, and of soul. While they demanded justice for 
black men and the loyal men of the South, they plead also 
for mercy to a fallen foe. 

When I came here last spring to see President Johnson, 
he was talking about "making treason odious, and declaring 



— 412— 

that traitors should take a back seat." I was more anxious 
to secure justice to our friends and allies than to execute ven- 
g-eance on our late enemies. All we asked then and all we 
ask now is justice — justice to our friends and mercy to a 
fallen foe. All we ask now for white men and black men in 
the South and in the North is justice; and I tell you, that by 
the blessing" of God, we intend to have it. Be not deceived. 
You cannot always postpone the demands of justice. As a 
nation we have learned by sad experience that we cannot 
trample upon it with impunity. Neither laws nor 'customs 
nor despotism can silence its claim, because it is a principle 
implanted by the Creator in every human heart, and can 
never be wholly eradicated by the selfishness or tyranny of 
man. He who understands the simple teachings of the 
golden rule comprehends the application of justice alike by 
g-overnments and men. 

It needs no learning or superior wisdom to interpret it. 
The ignorant black, so recently a slave, and the most 
scholarly white, alike understand it. Justice demands liberty 
and equality before the law for all. It speaks in the heart 
of every man, wherever born, with an inspiration like unto 
that which spoke on the day of Pentecost with tongues of 
fire. Woe to the statesman or party or nation which tram- 
ples on this principle ! Its complete recognition by our govern- 
ment will bring us national grandeur and national glory, and 
secure unity, peace, prosperity, power. Its rejection will 
tarnish the fair fame of our country, and bring discord, dis- 
sension, adversity, war. 

Let the corner-stone of each reconstructed State be jus- 
tice and the cap-stone will be liberty. "With liberty and jus- 
tice as the fundamental law of our national and State gov- 
ernments there can be no war of races, no secession, no rebel- 
lion. It is injustice and oppression which bring dissension 
and war. The opposite will bring harmony and peace. He 
who votes injustice to-day will be held accountable by the 
people now, and in the great tribunal of human history will 
be justly chargeable with all the oppression, wrongs, and 
wars which must follov/ the enactment of injustice into law. 
The law-maker who demands nothing for himself which he 
will not concede to the humblest citizen is the only true 



— 413 — 

statesman. Make the community of interest one by g-uaran- 
tying- the equal rights of all men before the law, and the 
fidelity of every inhabitant of such a commonwealth becomes 
a necessit}' not only from interest but from a love of justice. 
Sir, this Congress is writing a new chapter in American 
history. Let every man whose great privilege it is to record 
his name where it will stand forever, so record it as to secure 
the triumph of justice, and his name and memory shall have a 
life coequal with the Republic. 

Sir, he who has comprehended the logic of the terrible 
conflict through which we have passed and studied with 
profit the lessons which it has taught, will have learned the 
point at which in our great march as a nation we have 
reached, and know something of the course which in the 
future it will travel. 

Animated for many years by conflicting, sectional, hostile 
forces, I have lived to see since my entrance into Congress 
these antagonistic views so modified and melted into one that 
to-day the condition is accepted by all patriotic, right-think- 
ing men, and the historian without confusion can make up 
the record. If this war has taught us any one lesson more 
clearly than another, it is that we are inseparably one people, 
that this continent can never again become the abode of 
human slavery, and that in all our future deliberations in 
these Halls old antagonisms will cease to divide us, and our 
hopes and aspirations become one, because our interests are 
one. 

Let this measure, or those which the Senate may perfect, 
pass and go into the Constitution of the country; let the 
propositions before us become the law of the land, and you 
will have done something toward securing the triumph of 
justice. Pass these acts, and justice as a flaming sword will 
stand at the doors of the nation's council halls to guard its 
sanctuary from the presence of traitors. Pass them, and he 
who approaches this temple of liberty shall pause at the 
threshold before entering and swear eternal fidelity to the 
republic. 

Let these propositions pass and the proposed amendment 
of the Constitution become part of our fundamental law, and 
a generation shall not pass away before witnessing the com- 



— 414 — 

plete enfranchisement of every freeman and the entire aboli- 
tion of all class leg-islation. 

In this faith and with this hope, believing- that Provi- 
dence in the future as in the past will overrule all for our 
good and supply where we have failed, I am prepared to give 
my voice and ray vote for whatever measure a majority of the 
loyal members of the American Congress may adopt for the 
restoration of the States lately in rebellion. 



SPKBCH 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO, 
In the Housb of Representatives, January 26, 1867. 



RECONSTRUCTION. 



The House having- under consideration House bill No. 543, 

to restore to the States lately in insurrection their full 

political rig-hts — 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said: 

Mr. Speaker: I am opposed to the motion of my col- 
league to refer the bill now under consideration, with the 
pending- amendments, to the joint Committee on Reconstruc- 
tion. I am also opposed to the motion which the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania gave notice of the other day, to lay these 
bills on the table. I hope the motion to refer them, or lay 
them on the table, will not be adopted. If either of these 
motions should prevail it would operate practically as a 
declaration on the part of the House that no action may be 
expected during the remainder of this Congress upon the 
great question of reconstruction. I accept the suggestion of 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and now withdraw my 
amendment to his substitute; and, so far as I can, I will sus- 
tain the motion which he proposes to make on Monday, that 
the House consider these bills as in Committee of the Whole 
under the five-minute rule, and try to perfect a bill so as to 
be able to send it to the Senate within the next two or three 
days. 

Gentlemen at all familiar with the legislation of the 
House, and the manner in which its business is now blocked 
out, will comprehend at once that unless some speedy action 
is had by the House, and the bill sent to the Senate, so that 

(415) 



— 416 — 

they may have time to examine it, and to review the veto 
message in case it shall come in, during- the life of this 
Thirty-ninth Congress, there can be no act passed which will 
bring- relief to the loyal men of the South or carry out the 
pledges which the Thirty-ninth Congress made to the coun- 
try and to the loyal men of the South, that loyal and consti- 
tutional State governments should be established there on the 
reassembling of Congress. 

As the gentleman from Pennsylvania has just remarked, 
there are but twenty working-daj^s practically left of this 
session. The Thirty-ninth Congress went to the country in 
opposition to the policy of the President, and to what we 
were pleased to denominate his usurpations. The people in 
generous confidence have sustained Congress and returned 
to the Fortieth Congress by majorities unprecedented men 
pledged to the abolition of the governments established by 
the acting President of the United States, in violation of al' 
law, and, as I claim, in clear violation of the Constitution. 
A large majority on this side of the House were returned to 
the next Congress under the express pledge that they would 
not permit these rebel State governments to exist a single 
hour after this Congress had been in session long enough to 
declare them abolished. If this Congress fails to redeem 
that pledge it will commit a blunder which, in such an hour 
as this, is worse than a crime. 

Mr. ConkIvIng. I ask the gentleman to state his objec- 
tion to having a subject like this, with regard to which a 
number of bills have been brought forward, committed to a 
committee which has now no work upon its hands and which 
has a right to report at any time. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. My answer to the gentleman 
from New York is, that the Committee on Reconstruction 
have held no meetings during this entire session up to this 
hour. Several bills proposed by gentlemen have been re- 
ferred to that committee during this session upon which they 
have taken no action. If the committee ever gets together 
again, which I doubt, as it is a large committee composed of 
Ijoth branches of Congress, I have but little hope of their 
heing able to agree. The chairman of the committee on the 
part of the Senate, as is well known, is absorbed in his efforts 



— 417 — 

to perfect the financial measures of the country, and I fear 
that if this bill goes to that committee it will g-o to its grave, 
and that it will not during- the life of the Thirty-ninth Con- 
gress see the lig-ht. If I were opposed to these bills I would 
vote to send them to that committee as sending- them to their 
tomb. That is my answer to the gentleman from New York. 

Mr. C0NKI.1NG. I do not know whether the gentleman 
from Ohio would like my opinion as to whether that is a good 
answer or not. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I have no objection to the gen- 
tleman giving his opinion. 

Mr. Conkling. I think it is not very good considering 
that it comes from such a distinguished source. There is no 
difficulty in having prompt consideration of anything which 
may be sent to the committee. It was created originally 
solely to deal with this subject. It was at first broken into 
four sub-committees that the work of gathering evidence 
might be more advantageously and speedily carried on. It 
became one committee, usually working together, only during 
a few weeks immediately preceding the bringing forward of 
its ultimate propositions. It would not be decorous for me 
to praise the committee or the work it did; but I may say 
with propriety that if it ever was a good committee, if it 
ever should have been created and composed as it was, it is a 
good committee now — better than it ever was before; better, 
because more familiar with this subject, because its members 
having now become acquainted with each other's views, and 
liaving become accustomed to act with each other, and hav- 
ing studied the whole subject committed to them, can proceed 
with much more hope of good results than ever before. 
Having a right to report at any time, and being led on the 
part of this House, by the distinguished gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], I see no reason wh}- it cannot 
consider and digest wisely and promptly whatever may be 
referred to it and make report. 

I did not intend to say one word about this, and do not 
intend to rise again in regard to it. I beg now to say, how- 
ever, .that I hope the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bingham] 
will not withdraw his motion to refer this whole subject to 
27 



-—418 — 

the joint Committee on Reconstruction; on the contrary, I 
trust the majority of this House will promptly refer all these 
bills with all cognate propositions to that committee, and 
give them at least one opportunity at this session to show 
whether thej- can produce something- for action or some 
reason for not acting. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I have as much confidence in the 
joint Committee on Reconstruction as any gentleman on this 
floor; but the gentleman from New York [Mr. Conkling] will 
remember that the propositions which they brought forward 
near the close of the last session, simultaneously in both 
branches, were propositions which demanded a two-thirds 
vote of each branch of Congress, and did not require the signa- 
ture of the Executive. Had they required the signature of 
the Executive, and been returned by him without his signa- 
ture, as any reconstruction bill undoubtedly will be, the time 
to which Congress had limited its session would have expired 
before we could have reconsidered and passed them over his 
veto. 

Upon this subject of reconstruction the great body of 
this House have given much thought, and I believe we can 
arrive quite as surely at a result here in the House, under the 
five-minute rule of amendment and debate, as we can by re- 
ferring this subject to any committee. 

Mr. Stevens. I will reply, in answer to what my col- 
league upon the joint Committee on Reconstruction [Mr. 
Conkling] has said, that he seems not to be aware that we 
are now considering a report from that very committee. 
That committee made a report, and I have offered a sub- 
stitute for the bill which they reported. If the gentleman 
thinks the report of that committee best then let him vote 
against my substitute. But why send this subject back 
again to the committee ? The gentleman knows as well as I 
do how many different opinions there are in that committee ; 
some of us believe in one thing, and some of us in another; 
some of us are very critical and some of us are not. The idea 
that we can consider anything in that committee, constituted 
as it is, in less than a fortnight, it seems to me is wholly out 
of the question; and as we have only about some twenty work- 
ing-days in which to mature this bill in both branches of Con- 



-U419 — 

gress, if we send this subject to that committee and let it take 
its time to consider it, and then have it reported here and 
considered ag-ain, I certainly need not say to g-entlemen that 
that would be an end of the matter, at least for this session. 
I do not believe the gentleman from New York [Mr. Conkling-] 
desires to accomplish that result ; though I believe some gen- 
tlemen do. I believe that will be its fate as inevitably as it 
goes there. 

Mr. Conki^ing. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley], 
I trust, will allow me a remark in reply. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Certainly. 

Mr. Conki^ing. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Stevens] inquires why this report, emanating originally from 
the Committee on Reconstruction, should now be sent back. 
Let me answer : the gentleman from Pennsylvania concurred 
in that report ; he had his full share in molding it and making 
it precisely what it was. He supported it then ; now he 
offers a substitute for it. Why ? Beqause the time which 
has elapsed since then and the events which have transpired 
have modified, he thinks, the exigencies of the case. Is not 
that as applicable to the judgment of the committee as to his 
own ? And if it be necessary for him now to offer, as he has 
offered, a different series of provisions in order to express his 
views, matured as they are by the intermediate experience, is 
it not necessary, or if not necessary is it not proper, that it 
should have the opportunity of acting for once in the light of 
all the facts and circumstances as they are to-day ? By as 
much as those circumstances involve the necessity of the 
substitute emanating from the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
by so much in my judgment they invoke the renewed action 
of this committee. 

JMr. Stevens. The gentleman is aware, I suppose, that 
two or perhaps three bills on this subject have been referred 
during this session to that committee. Why has not the 
committee acted on them ? 

Mr. C0NKI.1NG. Mr. Speaker, if I were the chairman of 
the committee on the part of this House I should be able to 
answer that question, because then I could tell why I had not 
called the committee together. But as I am only a subordi- 
nate member of the committee, whose business it is to come 



— 420 — 

when I am called, and never to call others, I am entirely un- 
able to g"ive the information for which the g-entleman inquires. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if I could have any 
assurance that this committee would be able to report 
promptly a bill upon which this House could probably ag^ree, 
I would not hesitate a single moment to vote for the reference 
of this measure to that committee, including- the several bills 
before my own committee, because, as I said in the outset, I 
have entire confidence in the g-entlemen who constitute that 
committee. But, believing- that they will be unable to ag-ree, 
I shall vote ag-ainst a recommitment. 

One word more with reg-ard to this matter. This House 
has on two different occasions by resolutions instructed the 
committee of which I am chairman — the Committee on 
Territories — to report to the House bills on this subject. 
Some half dozen bills have been prepared and sent to that 
committee. And when the committee is called, unless the 
House shall already have acted on some proposition looking- 
to the reorganization of loyal g-overnments in the late rebel 
States, we intend to report a bill and to insist upon a vote. 
So far as I am concerned I do not intend that the Thirty- 
ninth Cong-ress shall adjourn without some effort to provide 
g-overnments which shall secure justice and equality to all 
loyal men in the southern States. 

Mr. Blaine. With the g-entleman's permission I desire 
to ask him, in reg-ard to those bills now before his committee, 
whether, when they were introduced here for reference, the 
point of order was made upon them that they had no business 
bef c re tha+ committee, but belong-ed, under the rules of the 
House, to tne Reconstruction Committee. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. No, sir; one of those resolutions 
.was introduced before this House ag-ain g-alvanized into 
life the Reconstruction Committee for the remainder of the 
session. 

Mr. Blaine. And all the bills that have been referred 
to the g-entleman's committee since then were referred in 
direct violation of a rule of this House; and if the point of 
order had been made upon them they would not have been 
referred to that committee. I do not think that the g-entle- 



— 421 — 

man's committee oug-lit to take advatitag-e of the neg^lect of 
members to make the point of order. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If this House has, by unanimous 
consent, since the adoption of the resolution reviving- the 
Reconstruction Committee, sent bills to the Committee on 
Territories, it is no fault of the latter committee. 

Mr. Blaine. Unanimous consent, in nine cases out of 
ten, is only another name for negflig-ence on the part of the 
House. It was g-ross neg-lig"ence in this case. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Very well, sir, that may be the 
opinion of the g-entleman; but so far as the House is concerned, 
its action, before the Reconstruction Committee was recon- 
stituted for this sesssion, authorized the committee of which 
I am chairman to report a bill, and we intend to do it. 

Now, sir, I wish to examine briefly one or two of the 
provisions of the amendment which I have offered to the bill 
of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Substantially this bill 
will be reported by the Committee on Territories if no bill is 
previously acted on by the House. 

Mr. Finck. I desire to ask my colleag-ue whether he 
can tell the House and the country what the plan of con- 
g-ressional reconstruction is? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I hope to be able to do so before 
I take my seat. 

Mr. Finck. We shall be very glad, indeed, to learn it. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. At any rate, I shall show that a 
majority of the Republican Union party by their votes in the 
Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses are committed 
to the plan of reconstruction now proposed. 

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Ray- 
mond], in his speech on the day before yesterday, made an 
objection to the amendment which I have offered because it 
abolishes unqualifiedly the DE FACTO State governments 
established by the acting President in the late rebel States, 
and claimed that in the interim between the organization of 
the provisional committees provided for in the bill and the pas- 
sage of the act abolishing these governments anarchy would 
reign supreme in those States, and he claimed that any 
government is better than no government. Now, Sir, the 
gentleman from New York was mistaken. It is true that 



— 422 — 

there would be no local civil g-overnment left in those States 
if the bill should pass abolishing* the present g"overnments; 
but there is a provision directing- the President of the United 
States to see that the laws of the United States are executed 
in those States and the lives and property of our citizens 
protected. 

Mr. Bingham. What laws of the United States to 
protect life and property? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. No law of the United States now 
on the statute-books ; but the President is required by the 
provisions of my bill to use then,entire military and naval 
force of the nation to protect the lives and property of the 
citizen in those States during* the interim. So far as that 
subject is concerned the lives and property of the people will 
be just as safe as they were during- the interim between the 
surrender of Lee and Johnston and the org-anization of the 
present governments. 

With the whole force of the United States at the Presi- 
dent's disposal, he can if he will protect the lives and prop- 
erty of the people quite as well as he did after the surrender 
and until the establishment of the governments now existing- 
there. 

Mr. Bingham. What provision is there in this act for 
the protection of life and property? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The bill provides that the force 
of the United States shall be at the disposal of our military 
commanders in those States just as it was at the suppression 
of the rebellion. 

Mr. Bingham. What provision is there to punish any 
acts of petit larceny? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. There is none. If any act of 
petit larceny is committed in those States during- the short 
interim contemplated it will not materially damag-e the loyal 
men who have been exiled or despoiled of all the}' possess. 
If such acts are committed upon Union men under the present 
governments there is no chance for redress under these 
DE FACTO rebel governments. So far as I am concerned, if 
I were a southern loyalist, I would rather have no govern- 
ment at all than the infernal despotism which to-day crushes 
the loyal men of the South. 



— 423 — 

Mr. K1.DRIDGE. Will the g-entleman tell me what laws 
of the United States he considers applicable to this country? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I have provided in this bill for 
that. 

Mr. Eldridge. I understand the g-entleman to say he 
expected the people of these Territories to be protected by and 
under the laws of the United States, enforced by the Presi- 
dent. Will the g-entleman tell me what laws he purposes 
shall be enforced? 

Mr. Ashi,ey, of Ohio. My colleag-ue has just propounded 
the same question, and I have just answered it. 

Mr. Eldridge. I was not able to hear what occurred 
between the g-entlemen and his colleague. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The whole machinery of the bill 
is to compel the President of the United States, with the 
army and navy and the whole force at his disposal, to see to 
i t that this ac<- and all acts of the provisional g-overnments 
organized under it shall be enforced in those States. 

The gentleman from New York [Mr. Raymond] made the 
objection that there would be an interval of time when there 
would be no government in these States. I reply again that 
the interim would be no longer than that which occurred 
after the suppression of the rebellion and the setting- up of 
the provisional governments now existing- there, and the 
time would not :rdinarily be long-.^r than sixty days. 

As I intend to withdraw this bill, as requested by the 
g-entleman from Pennsylvania, I will not take up the time of 
the House in discussing its provisions. 

Mr. Bingham. Can that be done while my motion is 
pending to refer? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Yes, sir, it can; but I yield to 
the gentleman to make his point of order if he desires. 

Mr. Bingham. But the (o-entleman has not withdrawn it. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If I have not, I withdraw it now. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, in reply to some of the arguments 
addressed to this House by g-entlemen on the other side, I 
want to say that the great body of Union men deny that dur- 
ing" the entire war there has been any constitutional State 
g"overnment in an}- one of the States in rebellion. Tennessee 
tius been readmitted, or its reorganized State g-overnment 



— 424— 

lias been recog-nized b}^ Congress since the war. The g-entle- 
men who have served with me here during- the entire war 
recog-nize the fact that the great body of men constituting- 
the Republican-Union party have held that opinion since the 
outbreak of the rebellion. 

At the first regular session of the Thirty-seventh Con- 
gress I introduced a bill to establish temporary provisional 
governments in the then eleven rebellious States. The Com- 
mittee on Territories authorized me to report such a bill^ 
and on the 12th of March, 1862, I did report such a bill to 
this House, which was laid on the table by a small majority; 
the great body of the Union members present and voting 
voted against laying the bill on the table. At the commence- 
ment of the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress a 
special committee was organized on the subject of reconstruc- 
tion, of which the late Henry Winter Davis, of Mar3dand, 
was chairman, and of which I also was a member. They 
proposed to this House, and the House and Senate passed, a 
bill again recognizing the principle on which the Union- 
Republican party have acted during the entire war, declaring 
there were no constitutional State governments in those 
States. These bills recognized the fact that the sovereignty 
of the nation was in the people residing in States which 
maintained constitutional State governments, acting in practi- 
cal relations with the Government of the United States. 
They held that Congress as the representative of the sov- 
ereignt}^ of the nation had the right to legislate on all sub- 
jects in States where constitutional State governments had 
been overthrown or destroyed. That bill passed both Houses, 
but failed to become a law because Mr. Lincoln declined to 
sign it, although he said he was acting and intended to fol- 
low practically the principles contained in the bill. 

Mr. Le Blond. Will my colleague jaeld for a question? 
I understand him to say that from the outbreak of the difii- 
culties to the present time this Congress entertained the 
views he has just advanced. If that be so, I would like to know 
how it came that the Congress passed in 1862 the Crittenden 
resolution, which is in direct conflict with the theory the 
gentleman has announced. I believe my colleague voted for 
that resolution. 



— 425 — 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The Crittenden resolution was 
passed at the extra session of Cong^ress in July, 1861, im- 
mediately after the battle of Bull Run. I voted for the first 
proposition in the resolution, which declared that this war 
had been inaug"Urated by the southern people who were then 
in arms around the national capital. I did not vote for the 
second proposition; I declined to do so, althoug-h the g-reat 
body of the party to which I belonged did vote for it. 

Mr. E1.DRIDGE. You did not vote ag-ainst it. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I did not vote at all. There were 
only two votes in the neg-ative on our side, if I remember 
rig-htly, m}' then colleague, Mr. Riddle, of Ohio, and Mr> 
Potter, of Wisconsin. 

Mr. Dawes. And two on the other side. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. And two on the other side. But 
that resolution did not commit this House nor the Republican 
party to any settled policy in regard to the state of things 
now existing. If the rebellion had been suppressed at once, 
if the people in rebellion had laid down their arms, then 
every gentleman here and all who served with me in the 
Thirty-seventh Congress know very well that they would 
have been welcomed back to their former positions at once. 
But the rebellion having been continued during the entire 
four years, the local governments in those States having been 
destroyed or their constitutional relations with the National 
Government suspended, when the people residing in the 
States which maintained constitutional State governments, 
and who during these four years constituted the Government 
of the United States and represented its sovereignty, crushed 
the rebellion, they had a right under every law, human and 
divine, to prescribe terms of restoration to the States lately 
in rebellion ; and I tell gentlemen on the other side that the 
men who crushed the rebellion intend to prescribe terms of 
restoration to those States. I know gentlemen of the oppo- 
sition insist with great pertinacity on the abstract proposition 
that there is no power in the people of a State to sever their 
constitutional relations with this government ; but, sir, there 
stands the fact against this theory. I admit, and every gen- 
tleman on this side of the House admits, that the people in a 
State have no constitutional power to destroy their State 



— 426 — 

g-overnments or dissolve their constitutional relations with 
the National Government ; but that they have nevertheless 
done so the history of the country for the past four years is 
the best evidence. 

Mr. Eldridge. Will the g-entleman allow me to ask him 
this question ? If what the rebels did previous to the passag-e 
of the Crittenden resolution did not break their relations 
with the United States, how could they have done it after- 
ward ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If the gentleman knows anything* 
of the history of the country he comprehends very well that a 
majority of the people in the North, even as late as late as July, 
1861, were unwilling to believe that such a formidable insurrec- 
tion and rebellion was before them, and that we were to 
have a bloody war of four years after the disaster at Bull Run. 

Mr. Eldridge. Then will the gentleman allow me to 
ask whether the United States have any power or authority 
by which they can allow a State to break its relationship 
with the Union ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I suppose there is no one in this 
House who would claim or admit that the Government of the 
United States has any constitutional power to authorize or 
recognize the right of a majority of the people of a State to 
dissolve their constitutional relations with the General Govern- 
ment. So far as I am concerned, and the great body of the men 
with whom I act, we utterly deny it. But, sir, if the people 
of a State do the act, what then? Who is there to prescribe 
the terms and conditions upon which these States shall be re- 
stored when these acts are consummated ? 

Sir, I hold, as my distinguished colleague [Mr. Bing- 
ham] holds, and as the great body of the Republican-Union 
party hold, that the Government of the United States under 
its present Constitution can only exist where constitutional 
State governments are maintained, and that the sovereignty 
of the people of this country reposes in the people who reside 
in States which maintain constitutional State governmez^ts 
in practical relations with the National Government, and 
exists nowhere else. I hold that the people of a State may, 
and all know that eleven States did, in violation of the Con- 
stitution, dissolve their practical relations with the National 



— 427 — 

Government. As an individual citizen maj-, in violation of 
law, commit crime, so may a political community, in viola- 
tion of law, refuse or neg-lect to discharg-e their constitution- 
al oblig-ations. If they do this thing-, I hold that the States 
which remain loyal must always represec t the national sov- 
ereig-nty and have the right to dictate such terms as they 
may see fit to revolting- States, and to compel the people 
of the States so violating- the Constitution to accept those 
terms, or to remain during- the pleasure of the conqueror in 
the condition in which we now find the late rebel States. 
No, not in such condition, but in such condition as the Con- 
gress which represents the nation may dictate. 

I have regretted to find, since this Congress came tog-ether, 
so many g-entlemen here doing- all they could to inflame the 
passions and prejudices of the g-reat body of the people who 
were recently in rebellion in the United States. I have re- 
g-retted to find them forming alliances with rebels and justi- 
fying the President of the United States, who has become 
the leader of a negative rebellion as hostile and as dangerous 
to the United States, and I fear far more so than an open 
armed rebellion would be if he were at the head of it. I am 
anxious, and the great body of those with whom I act are to- 
day most anxious, that the people who went into the rebel- 
lion (many of them honestly and thousands of them reluc- 
tantl}^) should be restored to their practical relations with this 
government upon the mildest and most merciful and forgiv- 
ing terms which it is possible for us, a conquering people, to 
impose upon them, looking to our own safety, the stability 
of the National Government, and the rights of loyal citizens 
in those States. 

Mr. Finck. Will my colleague yield to me for a moment? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. For a question. 

Mr. Finck. This is the very place for my question. What 
are the terms you propose ? What is the congressional plan 
for restoration ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The gentleman will find an an- 
swer if he will read these bills ; he will have his answer 
when this House has agreed upon some practical measure of 
restoration, which I trust we shall do within ten days — 



— 428— 

Mr. Finck. I ask the g-entleman which of these bills 
presents a fair congressional plan of restoration ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I hope the g-entleman will learn 
that fact when the majority of this House comes to vote upon 
these measures next Monday. 

Mr. Finck. I suppose so. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. And he cannot learn before. 

Mr. Finck. One more question, and I am done. I want 
to know of my colleag-ue, whom I recog-nize as the leader of 
that side of the House on this question, whether he admits 
that his party have not yet come to an ag-reement upon their 
plan of restoration ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. So far as I know they have not. 
The Union party practically committed themselves to a policy 
of restoration, and they went so far as to admit the State of 
Tennessee upon the proposed terms of that restoration policy. 
I voted for the admission of Tennessee, and do not reg-ret 
having" voted for the admission of that truly loyal State. 

If any other State recently in rebellion had come to this 
House under the same conditions in which Tennessee came, 
ratifying" the amendment to the Constitution, and having- 
adopted a State constitution securing- the control of the g-ov- 
ernment of the State to loyal men, I should, althoug-li it 
might not have come up to all my requirements, have voted 
for the admission of its members ; so anxious was I then, and 
so anxious am I now, to see the States recently in rebellion 
restored to their former position in the Union. But the g-reat 
body of the men recently in rebellion, under the lead of the 
Executive, have rejected these mild terms, and it now rests 
with Congress to say upon what terms they shall be admitted. 
Mr. Hise. I desire to ask the g-entleman one question, 
inasmuch as he asked me some questions while I was speak- 
ing" the other day 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I believe I did not ask the g-en- 
tleman from Kentucky [Mr. Hise] any questions at all. I 
merely declared in my seat in a word or two that I dissented 
from his views. 

Mr. Hise. I desire to ask a question. 
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Very well ; I will allow the g-en- 
tleman to ask me a question. 



— 429 — 

Mr. Hise. The g-entleman has said that there has not 
been a definite plan adopted by a majority of this House. I 
wish to ask the gentleman if he will go so far as to state that 
the majority of this House concur with him in refusing" ad- 
mission into the Congfress of the United States of representa- 
tives from these ten States now unless they ag-ree to the con. 
dition of branding" all who have held either civil or military 
of&ce under the confederacy as traitors, and as such are to be 
excluded from the rig"htto hold office under the United States, 
and reg"arding" the whole body of the people of those States 
who sympathized with or co-operated with those who en- 
deavored to establish the confederacy as disloyal, and thai 
none are to be reg"arded as loyal except the neg^roes and inter- 
lopers there ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. In all of the measures proposed by 
this Cong-ress the g"reat body of the men who were in the con- 
federate army and supported the rebellion have been g'ranted 
■entire f org-iveness. In the propositions which were submitted 
by Cong"ress to the people only certain parties were excluded 
from holding" office. Now, I would like to ask the g"entleman 
[Mr. Hise] whether he is willing* that men, who while mem- 
bers of this House, and of the Senate, and of the Government 
of the United States and of the several States, plotted treason 
ag"ainst this Government, and went into a war and maintained 
it for four years to destroy this Government, should now be 
received here without conditions with his vote ? 

Mr. Hise. I will answer that question. I am of the 
opinion that all of the distinguished men, both civilians and 
those who held commissions and authority in either army, 
in the suppression of the rebellion, in putting- down this se- 
cession, or opposition to the government, were citizens of 
States in the Union. I deny the authority of the Government 
to demand as a condition-precedent to admission to represen- 
tation upon this floor a right to inquire into the conduct of, 
to convict, and to condemn these men so as to denationalize 
them or to deprive them of the right to hold office either un- 
der the National Government or under a State government. 
I should oppose that as a usurpation of power. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The answer of the gentleman 
amounts to this : that so far as he and the party he repre- 



— 430 — 

sents are concerned they would not object to Jeff. Davis or 
any of the men whose hands are red with the blood of my 
loyal countrymen, coming- into this Hall and taking- seats 
along-side cf them as Representatives. But the gentleman 
goes further, and says this is a proposition to clothe the black 
population with the franchise, and interlopers with the right 
of the franchise in States. All I demand, all the loyal 
men of the nation demand, in the reorganization of State 
governments in the late rebel States, is that we protect the 
rights of those who during the war were our friends and 
allies, and I claim we can only do that by securing every loyal 
man the right of the ballot. 

But, Mr. Speaker, my time is passing, and I must return 
to the point which I was about to notice when interrupted. 
The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Ross] , like many other 
gentlemen upon that side of the House who have spoken be- 
fore him, asked why we permitted Senators and Representa- 
tives from these States to remain in these Halls after the re- 
bellion, if we recognized the principle upon which we now 
profess to act? Why, sir, the answer is obvious, and I am 
surprised that any intelligent gentleman should ask such a 
question. When those men were elected they came here from 
States recognized as constitutional States, in practical rela- 
tions with the National Government. A Senator of the 
United States is elected for six years, and a member of the 
House for two years. They came here and took their seats 
because they had been constitutionally elected before their 
States went into rebellion. Every gentleman knows that 
there is no authority under the Constitution which would 
authorize the House or the Senate to exclude a member duly 
elected and qualified, unless they committed some overt act 
of treason or violated the rules prescribed for the government 
of the House or Senate, and the gentleman ought to under- 
stand this matter quite as well as I do. 

Mr. Chanler. I want to ask the gentleman one ques- 
tion. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Very well; I will hear it. 

Mr. Chanler. It is this: if the loyal population of any 
State should be found to consist of negroes alone, does the 
gentleman mean to say that he would recognize that as a 



— 431 — 

State, its org-anization being- based upon negro population 
alone, excluding- the white race? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The g-entleman has asked me a 
question which he knows very well 

Mr. Chanler. You cannot answer it. [Laug-hter.] 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. It has no practical application so 
far as it relates to any of the States recently in rebellion. 

Mr. Chanler. You dare not answer it. Answer "yes " 
or " no," and do not falter about it. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. When the g-entleman talks about 
my faltering- and not daring- to answer he assumes what he 
has no right to assume. 

Mr. Chanler. Well, g-ive us an answer. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If the g-entlemah will take his 
seat and remain quiet for a moment I will g-ive him an an- 
swer. If there were a sing-le State in the American Union in 
which there was not a sing-le white man and all were black 
men, I would clothe its population with the rig-ht of the 
franchise, and with every other rig-ht of an American citizen 
under this Government. [Applause in the galleries.] Does 
the g-entleman reg-ard this as an answer? 

Now, Mr. Speaker, the g-entleman from Illinois [Mr. Ross] 
and those who sustain him have asked the question repeated- 
ly with an air of assumed innocence why we do not admit 
loyal Representatives from the recent rebel States upon this 
floor and upon the floor of the Senate. Why, sir, I would not 
vote to-day to admit Horace Greelc}' as a Representative in this 
House from South Carolina, nor would I vote to admit any 
other man, however loyal, as a Representative from that com- 
munity. Why? The g-entlemen on the other side comprehend 
this matter quite as well as I do. They know that no political 
community under our form of g-overnment has the riMit to 
representation on this floor or in the Senate of the United 
States, unless it has a constitutional State g-overnment 
org-anized and recog-nized by Cong-ress as in practical relation 
with the Government of the United States. The admission 
of Representatives and Senators in Cong-ress is a practical 
recog-nition of the State g-overnment from which they come. 

Mr. Hise. With the permission of the g-entleman from 
Ohio, I will say that I do not think he has met the interroo-a- 



— 432 — 

tion submitted bj the gentleman from New York [Mr. Chan- 
ler]. The gentleman from Ohio has said that if the popula- 
tion of a State were composed entirel}' of black men, no 
white men residing* in the State, he would recognize those 
black men as entitled to the right of suffrage and every other 
right. But the question of the gentleman from New York, 
as I understood it, was, whether the gentleman from Ohio 
would recognize as entitled to representation a State where 
suffrage was confined to the negroes, the white population 
being excluded from the exercise of that right. 

Mk. Ashley, of Ohio. Well, Mr. Speaker, if the gentle- 
man is anxious for my views on this point, I will explain. I 
am willing to forgive, though I can never forget the crimes 
committed by those who attempted to destroy this Govern- 
ment, I am willing to walk backv/ard and with the broad 
mantle of charitj' cover the political nakedness of the men re- 
cently in rebellion. My anxiety for the restoration of the 
Southern States is such that I am willing that all men, even 
those who held subordinate civil positions and positions in 
the army of the rebellion shall have the ballot, excluding 
only the more important and leading men from holding 
office — those, for instance, who were above the grade of 
colonel, and those who held positions under this Government 
before the rebellion. Every bill ever introduced by me for 
reorganizing these States has proposed to extend the right 
of the ballot to the great body of the white as well as the 
black people. My friend from Kentucky saj's — and if I held 
his opinions I would say — "that the rule I have suggested 
would exclude the very best men in the South." Undoubted- 
ly it would exclude those whom he and his friends regard as 
the best men in the South. If my friend from Kentucky had 
resided in South Carolina during the war I suppose he would 
never have been upon this floor. I respect him for standing 
up here and maintaining his opinions, erroneous as I deem 
them. I prefer an open, manly opponent to a pretended 
friend. A large majority of those with whom I act are anx- 
ious for the restoration of loyal State governments in the 
South. They are willing to go so far as to extend forgive- 
ness to the great body of the people guilty of the great crime 
of treason, and admit thfm to the ballot-box; but at the same 



— 433-— 

time they demand that every loyal man, every " interloper,'* 
as my friend from Kentucky terms the white Unionist, every 
man, however dusky his skin, whose heart beat true to the 
old flag- and the Union during- the entire war, shall be the 
equal of any traitor, however white. 

Mr. Hill. I desire to ask my friend from Ohio whether 
his last expression is to be taken as indicating- his conversion 
to the doctrine of ' 'universal amnesty and universal suffrage?" 

Mr. Ashley, of- Ohio. No, sir; I do not know that I have 
ever been in favor of that doctorine. As a practical man, 
however, I want to see the Union restored; and if the members 
of the opposition would come to this question with the 
earnestness of the men of New England and the'men of the 
West, the work of restoration would have been accomplished 
before now. Wh}^ sir, the assumption, the brazen-faced as- 
sumption, of men who during- the entire war were in open or 
secret alliance with the rebels, coming- here now and joining- 
hands with the apostate at the other end of the avenue, who 
is the leader, the recog-nized leader, of a counter-revolu- 
tion — a neg-ative rebellion, as I said awhile ago — passes com- 
prehension. 

Why, sir, suppose that in 1860 John C. Breckinridge had 
been elected President of the United States; suppose the anti- 
slavery men of the country had rebelled against his election, 
and their cause for rebellion would have been far greater than 
the cause which impelled the southern men into their rebellion; 
and suppose that after four years of bloody war this anti- 
slavery rebellion had been crushed and Mr. Breckinridge had 
been again elected President and in an hour of weakness you 
had taken an apostate abolitionist from the North for Vice- 
President, to show your love of the North you had conquered, 
to show them that you had no feeling of hatred toward them, 
and that in one' short month after the inauguration, by a 
conspiracy of anti-slavery men in the North, Mr. Breckin- 
ridge had been assassinated as Mr. Lincoln was assassinated, 
and the apostate abolitionist had come into the presidency as 
Mr. Johnson came into it, and he had pardoned and appointed 
throughout the North and the entire country the men who 
had been chiefs of the rebellion, turned out the men who had 
28 



— 434 — 

elected him, and appointed their unrelenting- enemies, what 
would have been your denunciations? Sir, I know the de- 
nunciations on this side of the House are mildness in com- 
parison with the terrible denunciations which would have 
been hurled at this apostate and usurper by the men on that 
side of the House. And they would not have stopped with 
denunciations;, he would have been impeached and deposed 
before to-day. 

Sir, all I ask, and all the loyal men of this country ask 
who have sacrified so much in blood and treasure in putting- 
down the rebellion, is that in the restoration of these States 
care shall be taken that the National Government shall not 
again be imperiled by a counter-revoluion, in which the apos- 
tate President shall be the leader, aided by the late rebels 
and their northern allies. Hence I am in favor of prompt 
and vig-orous action by this Cong-ress. I hold that these g-ov- 
ernments set up by Mr. Johnson are illeg-al, and I want them 
declared illeg-al and void before this Cong-ress adjourns. I do 
not care if for a period of sixty days or more or less, as alleg-ed 
by the g-entleman from New York [Mr. Raymond], there 
should be an interreg-num in which there would be no local 
civil g-overnments in those States. If you had been loyal men 
in New Orleans and Memphis during- the late massacre you 
would have welcomed any g-overnment instead of the g-overn- 
ments which planned and executed the murders there enacted. 
I would rather have every man stand upon his own responsi- 
bility as a man than to have g-overnments which exiled me 
from my home, confiscated my property, or murdered me or 
mine with impunity. In this city there are men to-day who 
have been exiled from their homes, not able to return, because 
of their fidelity to the flag- of the Union, the Government of 
the Union which they served during- the war refusing- them 
protection in their homes. 

What I want is not oaths; I have not much faith in oaths. 
I would trust some men on a simple declaration, such as I 
quoted in a speech on this subject at the last session, much 
sooner than I would trust those who hesitate at no oath; such 
a one, sir, as was made by a disting-uished g-entleman in North 
Carolina, Mr. Read, who presided over their recent reconstruc- 
tion convention, and who had been himself a rebel. His dec- 



— 435 — 

laratioti was sucli that when I read it in California I said in 
my heart, there is a man I can take by the hand and welcome 
back to the old family mansion. Bad men will take any oath 
under the advice and lead of unscrupulous politicians. We have 
witnessed its fatal working-s in Maryland. 

I want peace, I want unity, I want the Government re- 
stored, but I do not want the men who conquered the rebel- 
lion proscribed, and the g"overnments of the rebel States car- 
ried on by the men who have been waging bitter war against 
us for the past four years. I utterly repudiate the assump- 
tion of the President that he can parole armies and then au- 
thorize these paroled prisoners of war to form constitutional 
State goverments for the loyal men in the States recently in 
rebellion. I know very well if g-entlemen on the other side 
had been in power in the case supposed by me a while ago 
what they would have done. There would have been no let- 
up on their part. There would have been no such mercy as 
we have shown ; no such mild terms of restoration submitted 
as we have proposed. There would have been no such for- 
giveness. But they would have proscribed, and proscribed 
to the bitter end. They would have maintained their party 
organization in every rebel State against any and all attempts 
to overthrow it by those who had so recently been their ene- 
mies and the enemy of the nation. I say we are ready to for- 
give the great body of the Southern people, we are anxious 
to forgive them ; but we are determined, by the grace of God, 
that these rebel State governments organized by Johnson 
shall not be recognized, come what may ; that disloyal Rep- 
resentatives shall not appear upon this floor, nor shall the 
electoral votes of such States be counted in any presidential 
election until constitutional governments have been organized 
and recognized by the Congress of the United States. 



IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT. 



Rs;marks by Hon. Jamss M. Ashley, op Ohio, in thb 
House of Representatives, March 7, 1867. 



ON THE charges, RESOLUTIONS AND REPORTS IN FAVOR OF 

IMPEACHMENT. 



Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise to perform a 
painful, but, nevertheless, to me an imperative duty ; a duty 
which I think oug-ht not long-er to be postponed, and which 
cannot, without criminality on our part, be neg-lected. I had 
hoped, sir, that this duty would have devolved upon an older 
and more experienced member of this House than myself. 
Prior to our adjournment I asked a number of gfentlemen to 
offer the resolution which I introduced, but upon which I 
failed to obtain a suspension of the rules. 

Confident, sir, that the loyal people of this country de- 
mand at our hands the adoption of some such proposition as I 
am about to submit, I am determined that no effort on my 
part shall be wanting- to see that their expectations are not 
disappointed. 

Mr. Finck. I rise to a point of order. I want to know 
what the question is. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I will state it. 

Mr. Fincz. I have not heard it. 

The Speaker. If the g-entleman insists, the question 
must be stated. 

Mr. Finck. I do insist. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Then, sir, on my responsibility 
as a Representative, in the presence of this House, and be- 
fore the American people, I charg-e Andrew Johnson, Vice- 
President and acting- President of the United States, with the 

(436) 



— 437 — 

commission of acts which, in contemplation of the Constitu- 
tion, are hig-h crimes and misdemeanors, for which, in my 
judgment, he ought to be impeached. I therefore submit the 
following- — • 

Mr. Finck. I propose another question of order. Is 
that a question of privilege ? 

The Speaker. It is. In the Twenty-seventh Congress, 
by the then Speaker, it was decided, on the point raised by 
Horace Everett, of Vermont, that it was a question of privi- 
lege. 

Mr. Eldridge. Is there not a special order for to-day ? 
The Speaker. The unfinished business, which is the 
regular order, cannot interfere with this proposition. 

The Clerk read the proposition of Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, 
which is as follows : 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I demand the previous question. 
Mr. Spalding. I move it be laid on the table. Yeas, 
30; nays, 105. 

The question was then taken on the passage of the reso- 
lution, and decided in the affirmative. Yeas, 108; nays, 39. — • 
Congressional Globe, Jan. 7, 1868. 

I do impeach Andrew Johnson, Vice-President and act- 
ing President of the United States, of high crimes and mis- 
demeanors. 

I charge him with a usurpation of power and violation of 
law : 

In that he has corruptly used the appointing power: 
In that he has corruptly used the pardoning power: 
In that he has corruptly used the veto power: 
In that he has corruptly disposed of public property of 
the United States: 

In that he has corruptly interfered in elections, and com- 
mitted acts which, in contemplation of the Constitution, are 
high crimes and misdemeanors: Therefore, 

Be it Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary 
be, and they are hereby authorized to inquire into the official 
conduct of Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United 
States, discharging" the duties of the office of the President 
of the United States, and to report to this House whether, in 
their opinion, the said Andrew Johnson, while in said office, 
has been g"uilty of acts which are designed or calculated to 
overthrow, subvert, or corrupt the Government of the United 
States, or any department or office thereof; and whether the 



— 438 — 

said Andrew Johnson has been guilty of an}- act, or has con- 
spired with others to do acts, which, in contemplation of the 
Constitution, are hig-h crimes and misdemeanors, requiring- 
the interposition of the constitutional power of this House; 
and that said committee have power to send for persons and 
papers, and to administer the customary oath to witnesses. 



IMPEACHMENT OP THE PRESIDENT. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I rise to a question of privileg-e, 
and present the following- resolution: 

Whereas, The House of Representatives of the Thirty- 
ninth Cong-ress adopted, on the 7th of January, 1867, a resolu- 
tion authorizing- an inquiry into certain charg-es preferred 
ag-ainst the President of the United States; and whereas the 
Judiciar}^ Committee, to whom said resolutions and charg-es 
were referred, with authority to investig-ate the same, were 
unable for want of time to complete said investig-ation before 
the expiration of the Thirty-ninth Cong-ress; and whereas in 
the report submitted by said Judiciary Committee on the 2d 
of March they declare that the evidence taken is of such a 
character as to justify and demand a continuation of the 
investig-ation by this Congress: Therefore 

Be it RESOI.VED by the House op Representatives, 
That the Judiciary Committee, when appointed, be, and they 
are hereby instructed to continue the investigation authorized 
in said resolution of January 7, 1867, and that they have 
power to send for persons and papers, and to administer the 
customary oath to witnesses; and that the committee have 
authority to sit during the sessions of the House and during 
any recess which Congress may take. 

Resolved, That the Speaker of the House be requested 
to appoint the Committee on the Judiciary forthwith, and 
that the committee so appointed be directed to take charge of 
the testimony taken by the committee of the last Congress; 
and that said committee have power to appoint a clerk at a 
compensation not to exceed six dollars per day, and employ 
the necessary stenographer. 

Mr. Wilson, of Iowa. I desire to offer an amendment. 
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I will hear it. 
Mr. Wilson, of Iowa. The amendment I desire to offer 
is t© add to the resolution the following: 

Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Representa- 
tives be directed to pay out of the contingent fund of the 



— 439 — 

House, on the order of the Committee on the Judiciary, such 
suni or sums of money as may be required to enable the said 
committee to prosecute the investig-ations above directed, and 
such other investigations as it may be ordered to make. • 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I accept that amendment as a 
modification of my resolution. 

Mr. Speaker, this resolution will bring- the House to a 
vote on a question of transcendent importance. It bring-s us 
face to face with a man whose usurpations have imperiled 
the republic. We cannot escape the consideration of this 
question if we would, and we oug-ht not if we could. The 
report of the Judiciary Committee of the last House made on 
Saturday is a sufficient vindication of the action of that body 
on the charg-eS presented looking- to the impeachment of the 
President. It is a report which the moral sense of the nation 
will approve. It is to be reg-retted that that committee were 
not authorized at an earlier day to proceed with this investi- 
g-ation, so that they might have completed it and presented 
the case to Congress. All true men who have examined this 
matter impartially can but regret our inability to secure 
earlier action. 

But I think I may without hazard express the opinion 
that there is no cause for discouragement; that the founda- 
tions have been so carefully laid that the machinations of the 
conspirators and their chief, with all the immense power and 
patronage in his hands, will be unable long to stay the doom 
which awaits him. It is, sir, to go upon the record of this 
House, and it will go into history, that the people of the 
United States will never permit the President to usurp the 
prerogatives of the law-making power; nor will they permit 
him to defy the deliberately recorded verdict of the nation. 
They will permit no man — certainly no man who came into 
the Presidency through the door of assassination — 

Mr. Niblack. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of 
order. Is debate in order at this stage of proceeding? 

The; Speaker. Debate is in order. 

Mr. Niblack. Is the resolution before the House? 

The Speaker. It is before the House as a question of 
privilege. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] will 
proceed. 



— 440 — 

Mr. Speaker, I was saYing-, v/hen irxterrupted, that the 
people of this country will never permit any man — certainly 
no man who came into the Presidency throug-li the door of 
Assassination — to use the vast powers with which the Execu- 
tive of this country is clothed in defiance of Cong-ress and the 
people. That the acting" President has done all this and 
more will not be seriously denied. His usurpations of power 
have been in clear violation of the Constitution, and many of 
his acts tend directly to revolution. In fact the messag-e to 
which we were all compelled to listen on last Saturday, re- 
turning- with his objections the reconstruction bill, v/as but 
an invitation to revolution and civil war. If any loyal man 
had doubted before, he could doubt no longer, that while this 
man remains in the presidential office there can be no tran- 
quility in this country, no security for property, liberty, or 
life to loyal citizens in the South, no such restoration of this 
Government as the Union army and the Union citizens of 
this nation have decreed, no safety for a sing-le hour from 
rebellion or revolution. 

Sir, a man of Mr. Johnson's antecedents, of his mental and 
moral character, coming into the Presidency as he came into 
it — and I say nothing" now of the dark suspicions which crept 
over the minds of men as to his complicity in the assassination 
plot, nor of the fact that I cannot banish from my mind the 
mysterious connection between death and treachery which 
this case presents — I say, such a man, in view of all that has 
happened, coming into the presidential office as he came into 
it, ought to have walked with uncovered head, and very 
humbly, before the loyal men of this nation and their Repre- 
sentatives in the American Cong-ress. 

Mr. Speaker, if this nation does not stamp with the broad 
seal of its condemnation the usurpations and crimes and mis- 
demeanors of this man it will be but an invitation in the 
future for a repetition of these usurpations, crimes and mis- 
demeanors. 

Self-protection and a proper respect for the honor of the 
nation demand that the Representatives of the people shall 
declare, in a manner not to be misunderstood, that no man 
hereafter elected President or Vice-President shall present 
himself at his inauguration drunk; that no man discharging 



— 441 — 

the duties of the office of President of the United States shall 
be permitted to turn the White House into a den of thieves 
and pardon-brokers, nor shall he be permitted with impunity 
to address in vulgar, seditious lang-uag-e a drunken, howling' 
mob from the steps of the Executive Mansion. 

Sir, unless this committee take charge of this matter and 
proceed with it, this Congress might as well lay down its 
powers. If, however, nothing more should be done, I am sure 
that, when the evidence which has been already taken is pub- 
lished, it will operate as a deliberate and solemn protest 
against a repetition in the future of another drunken elec- 
tioneering tour such as last year mantled the cheek of this 
nation with shame; that it will be a protest against the un- 
pardonable attacks which the acting Executive made upon 
the national Congress, a protest against his usurpations and 
crimes and misdemeanors. 

Sir, his crime is not, as many suppose, the mere perfidy 
of which he has been guilty to the men who in an evil hour 
elected him Vice-President of the United States, black and in- 
famous as it is; his crime is the highest known in our country, 
a crime against the Republic itself. 

If the investigation go no further, it will establish be- 
yond question that the people of this country will not per- 
mit any man with impunity to be guilty of acts of which he 
has been guilty; and if so, the investigation will not have 
been in vain. Mr. Speaker, the United States is not the only 
nation which has been disgraced by such an executive head. 
Fortunately, however, for mankind, such men are born into 
the world to curse the human race but once in centuries. 
The nation cries out in its agony and calls upon the Congress 
of the United States to deliver them from the shame and dis- 
grace which the acting President has brought upon them. 
They demand that the loathing incubus which has blotted 
our country's history with its foulest blot shall be removed. 
In the name of loyalty betrayed, of law violated, of the Con- 
stitution trampled upon, the nation demands the impeach- 
ment and removal of Andrew Johnson. 

'JThe Speaker here intimated to Mr. Ashley that he was 
proc ^ding beyond the license allowed in debate, and after 
som' interruption he again proceeded, as follows: 



— 442 — 

Mr. Speaker, I know, on this question, that the timid 
among" the loyal hesitate, that the late rebels and their 
northern allies are defiant, and that the camp-followers of the 
President alternately threaten and supplicate, and that all 
unite in prophesying- war and revolution, and in any event, 
financial ruin to the country, if Congress shall undertake 
to arraig-n and depose the President, as provided by the 
Constitution. Sir, I hope this Cong-ress will not hesitate 
to do its duty because the timid in our own ranks hesitate, 
or because of the threats of the President's satraps and 
rebel allies, but that it will proceed with dignity and de- 
liberation to the discharge of the high and important duty 
imposed upon it, uninfluenced by passion and unawedby fear. 
If, as has been happily suggested by one of our able and true 
men, the nation could stand the shock occaioned by the mur- 
der of a beloved President by the hand of an assassin, it surely 
can stand the shock caused by the removal of one so detested 
as the acting President, if done in pursuance of law. 

And, sir, has he not done enough? Before he had been 
one month in the Presidency he entered into a combination 
with the enemies of the nation to usurp in their interest the 
prerogatives of Congress, and sought to bind hand and foot 
the loyal men of the South, who had aided us in putting down 
the rebellion, by putting the governments of the South in 
the hands of their mortal enemies and ours. This with me 
is enough. When you add to this his other acts, which have 
become public history, the case for me is complete. 

The duty of the President is to execute, not to make laws. 
His oath requires him to see that the laws are faithfully ex- 
ecuted. That the President has neglected or refused to exe- 
cute many of the laws of Congress no man questions. That 
he has failed to execute the civil rights bill, nay, that he has 
not even attempted to execute it, the whole country knows. 
On the other hand, he has not only failed to execute it, but 
in most indecent and offensive language he has assailed and 
denounced the law as unconstitutional. 

Sir, in his failure to execute this just and most necessary 
law the crime of the President becomes perfectly colossal. 
Since the surrender of Lee and Johnston more than five thou- 
sand American citizens, guilty of no crime but love of country, 



— 443 — 

have been murdered by men who were lately in arms against 
this country. Thousands more have been driven from their 
homes into exile, while no effort has been made on the part 
of the executive department of the Government to g-ive them 
the protection which the law demands and which justice and 
humanity demand. So far as I know, in no single instance 
has one murderer or rioter been arrested and punished for his 
crimes, while loyal men who served in the Union army are 
arrested and tried before rebel tribunals and punished with 
unusual and severe punishments for doing" acts when in the 
performance of military duty and obeying the orders of their 
superior officers, and no effort is made by the executive de- 
partment of the Government to protect them. Sir, there 
never was a nation on this earth guilty of the infamy of treat- 
ing- its loyal citizens as the President of the United States 
has treated the loyal men of the South. 

I know how easy it is for the President and his co-con- 
spirators to deny his guilty knowledge. I know also how 
difficult it is to prove by technical rules the guilt of a man oc- 
cupying- his position, although the whole country may know 
him to be guilty. 

Why, sir, when the rebellion broke out in the winter and 
spring of 1861, and for several months afterward, no man 
could have been arrested, tried and convicted before a court 
and jury in this District who was engaged in conspiracy 
against this government, although no sane man ever doubted 
their guilt. It is much more difficult in a case of this kind, 
where the rebellion is not an open, armed rebellion, but a 
negative rebellion. In this rebellion the President is the rec- 
ognized leader, and it is well known that he has co-operat- 
ing with him nearly all the late rebels of the South. 

Mr. CHANI.ER interrupted, but Mr. Ashley declined to 
yield, and continued as follows: 

I KNOW, Mr. Speaker, how difficult it is by technicai. 

RULES TO PROVE THE GUILTY KNOWLEDGE OF MEN WHO RE- 
FUSE TO EXECUTE THE LAW WHILE PROFESSING TO DO SO. 

It is well known that the civil rights bill has not only not 
been enforced, but the vast military power at the disposal of 
the President, instead of being used to protect loj'al men, has 



— 444 — 

been used either by his guilty knowledg^e or by his indiffer- 
ence to crush the loyal men of the South. 

Mr. Eldridgk. I wish to make an inquiry of the gen- 
tleman. I understood him to make a remark censuring" the 
President because certain parties were not brought to 
trial. I wish to ask him if he thinks the President is to 
blame because Jefferson Davis has not been brought to trial ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I am unable to answer that 
question. I know that in those military departments under 
his command where he does interfere he has used the military 
power to crush the loyal men, instead of protecting them. 

Mr. Eldridge. "Will the gentleman give us one single 
instance where the President has neglected his duty in regard 
to the trial of any person ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Yes, sir ; in New Orleans, in 
Memphis, and in every rebel State. 

Mr. Eldridge. Could the President institute courts and 
try these parties ? 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I do not claim that he can, but he 
could give loyal men at least the same protection he has 
given rebels. He never hesitates to interfere in favor of 
rebels. I refer to the case of Mr. Watson, of Virginia, and 
others ; but it is not necessary that I should go into this. 

Mr. Speaker, I do not hesitate to say that, in view of all 
the facts before us, if this investigation is not proceeded 
with, and this man is not put on trial, the provision of the 
Constitution providing for the impeachment of the President 
is valueless. Sir, if this man is not impeached, if he is not 
tried and deposed from the high place which he has disgraced, 
then no man who may succeed him need ever fear trial and 
conviction, no matter what his crime. 

Sir, if this Congress will but do its duty, and meet 
the just expectations op the loyal people op this coun- 
try by empowering its judiciary committee to proceed 
with this investigation, and the committee do so with 
that energy which attends the proceedings in an ordi- 
nary criminal case, i believe the impeachment and con- 
VICTION OF THE President is as inevitable as death. 

Mr. Speaker, I should not have trespassed so long upon 
the time of the House as I have but for interruptions. But I 



— 445 — 

desire to make one sug-g-estion whicli has just occurred to 
me. It is this : that all persons, whether citizens or for- 
eigners, who have any documents in their possession which 
would be evidence in this case, or who are in possession of 
any facts tending- to show technically the g-uilt of this man, 
oug"ht as a matter of duty to bring- them to the knowledg"e of 
■the Committee on the Judiciary. 

Any person in the possession of such facts or documents 
refusing- or neglecting- to do so becomes an accessory in the 
crime of this man, and will be held responsible before the 
country and in the g-reat tribunal of human history as a co- 
partner in his g-uilt. 

Mr. Holman, of Indiana, moved to lay the resolution on 
the table — and the vote was yeas 32; nays 119. On the 
adoption of the resolution there was no division. — Congres- 
siONAi, G1.0BE, Matxch 16, 1867. 

On Saturday, Februar}^ 24, Mr. Stephens, of Pennsyl- 
vania, from the Committee on Reconstruction, submitted the 
following- report and resolution: 

The Committee on Reconstruction, to whom was referred, 
on the 27th day of January last, the following- resolution; 

Resolved, That the Committee on Reconstruction be 
authorized to inquire what combinations have been made or 
attempted to be made to obstruct the due execution of the 
laws; and to that end the committee have power to send for 
persons and papers and to examine witnesses on oath, and 
report to this House what action, if any, they may deem 
necessary; and that said committee have leave to report at 
any time. 

And to whom was also referred, on the 21st of February, 
instant, a communication from Honorable Edwin M. Stanton, 
Secretary of War, dated on said 21st day of February, 
together with a copy of a letter from Andrew Johnson, Presi- 
dent of the United States, to the said Edwin M. Stanton, as 
follows: 

Executive Mansion, ) 
Washington, D. C, February 21, 1868. j 
Sir: By virtue of the power and authority vested in me, 
as President, by the Constitution and laws of the United 
States, you are hereby removed from office as Secretary for 
the Department of War, and 3'our functions as such will 
terminate upon the receipt of this cominnnication. 



— 446 — 

You will transfer to Brevet Major General Lorenzo 
Thomas, Adjutant General of the Armj^ who has this day 
been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War 
AD INTERIM, all records, books, papers, and other public 
property now in your custody and charg-e. 

Respectfully 3'ours, 

Andrew Johnson. 
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Washing-ton, D. C. 

And to whom was also referred by the House of Repre- 
sentatives the following- resolution, namely: 

"Resolved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the 
United States, be impeached for high crimes and misde- 
meanors;" 

Have considered the several subjects referred to them, 
and submit the follov/itig- report: 

That in addition to the papers referred to the Commit- 
tee, the committee find that the President, on the 21st day of 
February, 1868, sig-ned and issued a commission or letter of 
authority to one Lorenzo Thomas, directing- and authorizing" 
said Thomas to act as Secretary of War ad interim, and to 
take possession of the books, records, and papers, and other 
public property in the War Department, of which the follow- 
ing" is a copy: 

Executive Mansion, [ 
Washington, February 21, 1868. j 
Sir: Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having- been this day 
removed from the office of Secretary for the Department of 
War, 3-ou are hereby authorized and empowered to act as 
Secretary of War ad interim, and will immediately enter 
upon the discharg-e of the duties pertaining- to that office. 
Mr. Stanton has been instructed to transfer to 3'ou all the 
records, books, papers, and other public property now in his 
custody and charge. 

Respectfully 5'ours, 

Andrew Johnson. 
To Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant 
General op the United States Army, Washington, 
District of Columbia. 

Oflicial copy respectfully furnished to Hon. Edwin !NL 
Stanton. L. Thomas, 

Secretary of War ad interim. 

Upon the evidence collected by the committee, which is 
herewith i)rescnted, and in virtue of the powers with which 
they have been invested by the House, they are of the opinion 
that Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be 
impeached of hig-h crimes and misdemeanors. They there- 



— 447 — 

fore recommend to the House the adoption of tlie accompany- 
ing" resolution. 

Thaddeus Stevens, 
Geokge S. Boutwell, 
John A. Blngham, 
c. t. hulburd, 
John F. Farnsworth, 
F. C. Beaman, 
H. E. Paine. 
Resolution providing- for the impeachment of Andrew 
Johnson, President of the United States. 
Resoeved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the 
United States, be impeached for hig"h crimes and misde- 
meanors in ofQ.ce. 



Remarks op Hon. J. M. Ashley, in the House op Repre- 
sentatives February 22, 1868, on this Resolution. 

The Speaker. The House will now resume the con- 
sideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on 
Reconstruction, in reference to the impeachment of the 
President of the United States, on which the g-entleman 
from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] is entitled to the floor. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in approaching- 
this subject I hope I do so in any other spirit than the 
spirit of a partisan. In the few minutes I 'shall occupy the 
time of the House, I desire to call attention first to the 
statute which the President, in his removal of the Secretary 
of War, has set at defiance, and second, to the provision of 
the Constitution which he has also violated. 

This act, sir, was passed and took effect on the 2d of 
March, 1867. 

The section reads thus: 

" Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That every 
removal, appointment, or employment, made, had, or exer- 
cised contrary to the provisions of this act, and the making-, 
signing-, sealing-, countersigning-, or issuing- of any commis- 
sion or letter of authority for or in respQct to any such 
appointment or employment, shall be deemed, and are hereby 
declared to be, high misdemeanors, and, upon trial and con- 
viction thereof, every person g-uilty thereof shall be punished 
by a fine not exceeding- $10,000, or by imprisonment not ex- 



— 448 — 

ceeding" five years, or both said punishments, in the discre- 
tion of the court: Provided, That the President shall have 
power to make out and deliver, after the adjournment of the 
Senate, commissions for all officers whose appointment shall 
have been advised and consented to by the Senate." 

This provision of law, passed by the Congress of the 
United States over the veto of the President, he has deliberate- 
ly violated. On last Friday, in utter defiance of it, and as if to 
challeng-e this House to resort to its constitutional powers, he 
notified the Senate that he had, on the authority vested in him 
by the Constitution, removed the Secretary of War. Now, sir, 
while I reg-ard this as one of the smallest of the many of- 
fenses of which this man has been guilty, yet it is clearly an 
offense brought within a narrow compass — one which is 
easily comprehended, and will satisfy that class of gentlemen 
in the House, who hold that the President cannot be im- 
peached except for a violation of some statute law. His dis- 
missal of the Secretary of War and the appointment of Mr. 
Thomas, on Friday, without the consent of the Senate, 
brings him within that technical rule. Sir, I regret that this 
House should not before to-day have put itself upon the 
record in condemnation of this most indefensible assumption 
that public officers, especially the Chief Magistrate, cannot 
be impeached except for the violation of some statute law or 
some clearly-defined provision of the Constitution. Sir, the 
impeaching power in the Constitution, as defined by the hon- 
orable gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Woodward], I 
accept as the only rational definition. It is, he told us a few 
weeks ago — 

" A popular power ; a power destined for the protection 
of the rights and liberties of the people against their rulers, 
and one that ought to be liberally construed, and in proper 
cases freely used." 

To assume that the President can be impeached only for 
*' treason" or " bribery" is practically to assume that he 
cannot be impeached. In Curtis' History of the Constitution 
he thus refers to the impeaching power of Congress : 

*' Among the separate functions assigned by the Consti- 
tution to the two Houses of Congress are those of presenting 
and trying impeachment. An impeachment, in the report of 



— 449 — 

the Committee of Detail, was treated as an ordinary judicial 
proceeding", and was placed within the jurisdiction of the 
Supreme Court. That this was not in all respects a suitable 
provision will appear from the following- considerations : al- 
thoug-h an impeachment may involve an inquiry whether a 
crime ag-ainst any positive law has been committed, yet it is 
not necessarily a trial for crime; nor is there any necessity in 
the case of crimes committed by public officers for the institu- 
tion of any special proceeding- for the infliction of the punish- 
ment prescribed by the laws, since they, like all other persons 
are amenable to the ordinary jurisdiction of the courts of 
justice in respect of offenses ag-ainst positive law. The pur- 
poses of an impeachment lie wholly beyond the penalties of a 
statute or the customary law. The object of the proceediL.g- 
is to ascertain whether cause exists for removing- a public 
officer from office. Such a cause may be found in the fact 
that either in the discharg-e of his office or aside_ from its 
functions he has violated a law or committed what is techni- 
cally denominated a crime. BuT A causi? for removal from 
office; may exist where no offense against positive law 

HAS BEEN committed, AS WHERE AN INDIVIDUAL HAS FROM 

immorality or imbecility or maladministration become 
unfit to exercise the office." 

But I cannot now pursue this point further. 

Sir, if there were no law on the statute book, if there 
were only the simple provisions of the Constitution, to which 
I shall in a moment refer, I would hold that this House 
mig-ht, under the authority vested in it, impeach the Presi- 
dent for the removal, without the consent of the Senate, of 
an officer, when the Senate is in session. I refer now to the 
clause vesting- the power of appointment in the President, 
with the consent of the Senate : 

" He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent 
of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the 
Senators present concur ; and he shall nominate, and by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint em- 
bassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judg-es of the Su- 
preme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose 
appointments are not herein otherwise provided, and which 
shall be established by law; but the Cong-ress may bylaw 
vest Ihe appointment of such inferior officers as they may 
think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or 
\n the heads of departments. 
21f 



— 450 — 

" The President shall have power to fill up all vacan- 
cies that may happen during" the recess of the Senate by 
g-ranting- commissions v^hich shall expire at the end of their 
next session." 

Mr. Pruyn. With the consent of the g-entleman I wish 
to ask him whether I correctly understood his position on the 
question to which he has just referred (removal from of&ce), 
and state briefly my view of it. It was alluded to in the dis- 
cussion on Saturday evening-. When the g-entleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Ingersoll] was on the floor, I made a remark, 
which was immediately controverted by several members on 
the other side, and particularly by the g-entleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Schenck], with whom I understood the member from 
Ohio now on the floor to concur. My statement was to this 
effect : that from the time this question as to the removal 
was discussed and decided b}^ Congress at its first session in 
1789 to the present day, the practice has been uniform that 
the President, and the President only, had made removals 
from office, and that without the concurrence of the Senate, 
although that body might be in session. This necessarily 
results from the nature of the power which under the Consti- 
tution, is inadvisable. I make this point now most dis- 
tinctly, as it is fundamental in this discussion, and has been 
so treated from the outset. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I regret exceeding- 
ly that my thirty minutes will not allow me to enter into a 
colloquy with the gentleman ; but I do not now call to mind 
a single instance in which any President of the United States 
has ever removed an officer confirmed by the Senate, without 
the consent of the Senate if it was in session. And I go 
further, and deny the power of the President, under the Con- 
stitution, to remove any officer, even during the recess of the 
Senate, without cause. 

Sir, the power of appointment is vested in the President 
by special grant, and not by implication. The President, I 
know, claimed in a message to the Senate on Friday last, 
that by virtue of the power vested in him by the Constitu- 
tion, he had authority to dismiss from and appoint to office 
without the consent of the Senate. If the power to dismiss 
and appoint without tiie codseaL of the benaie is possessed 



— 451 — 

"by the President, it must be an implied and not an express 
grant of power. Gentlemen may examine the Constitution 
and nowhere will they find such an express grant of power. 
I deny, therefore, that it exists, that any authority to ap- 
point can be delegated to the Executive by implication. The 
clause providing that the President shall "take care that 
the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all 
of&cers of the United States," does not confer the power to 
appoint or dism.iss ; nor does the fact that all executive power 
is vested in the President clothe him with any implied power, 
or power which may be necessary or proper to carry into 
effect any power which is expressly granted to the Executive. 
Sir, I can find in the Constitution no authority authorizing- 
the President to dismiss a faithful public officer without 
cause. 

"All power necessary and proper to carry into effect any 
power vested in the President or in any department or officer 
of the government is vested in the Congress of the United 

States." 

I desire to call the attention of the g-entleman from New 
York to that paragraph in the Constitution which clothes 
Congress with the power — 

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper 
for carrying into execution the foregoing* powers" — 

meaning those vested in Congress — 

"and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the 
Government of the United States, or in any department or 
officer thereof." 

Whatever power may be vested in the President by ex- 
press grant, he cannot assume to exercise a power merely 
because it is appurtenant to another power, and necessary, in 
his opinion, to carry out some provision of the Constitution. 
The right to clothe any officer of this g-overnment with 
' power not specially delegated, is reserved to the Congress of 
the United States as the law-making- power of this nation. 
Congress alone is clothed by the Constitution with authority 
to confer by law whatever power they may deem proper 
which is not specially delegated, either to the President, the 
judiciary, or any department or officer of the government. 



— 452 — 

Sir, this power does not exist la tlie President, nor in any 
department or officer of the gfovernment. It exists only in 
Cong"ress by express provision of the Constitution. 

The Constitution has lodg^ed the law-making- power in 
the Congress, in conjunction with the President, but some- 
times the law-making" power without the concurrence of the 
President. Then, sir, if there were no statute such as I have 
read, I would hold that the President was amenable to the 
high court of this nation for a deliberate and willful infrac- 
tion of the Constitution in the removal of Mr. Stanton. 

Now, sir, I hold, as I said a moment ago, that this is one 
of the smallest of the crimes of the President. That he has 
clearly set at defiance the statute I have quoted will not be 
denied. His act of Friday last reduces his offense to a nar- 
row compass. It is all official and upon paper. In the trial 
of this case we need not wade through a thousand pages of 
evidence which must be sifted in all cases to get a few grains 
of wheat. Nor need we consume much time in the trial. 
Here the offense is presented within a small compass and is 
within the comprehension of all. But few, if any, witnesses 
are needed. Sir, I am sure that when this trial shall take 
place before the high court of the nation, if the evidence 
taken before the Judiciary Committee of this House shall be 
reproduced there, it would establish one or more of the crimes 
of which this man has been charged, and the verdict of the 
people of this country will be, that this charge is one of the 
most excusable of the crimes of which he has been guilty. If 
Mr. Johnson had been guilty of no impeachable offense until 
his removal of Mr. Stanton, no one believes that a majority' of 
this House could be induced to vote for his impeachment now. 
Sir, what has been the logic of the conflict between this 
man and Congress ? From the outset it has been his delib- 
erate purpose, so far as his acts can indicate a purpose, to 
usurp to himself the law-making, the judicial, and the execu- 
tive powers of this Government. Starting out with loud pro- 
fessions of loyalty, he assumed first the entire authority of 
providing for the reorganization of the States lately in rebel- 
lion, and in doing so he conferred the entire power upon that 
class of citizens who were but a paroled army of Confederates, 
to the exclusion of the great body of loyal citizens. To this 



— 453 — 

paroled army he confided tlie power of reorg-anizing" State gov- 
ernments, and returning- those States to their constitutional re- 
lations in the Union. Then, sir, he made an alliance with 
the late rebel leaders, and they became his champions. 

He pardoned thousands of public enemies guilty ot the 
blackest of crimes, and to many of them, in violation of law, 
he gave official positions. He repeatedly authorized the 
payment of money from the public treasury In violation of. 
law. Pie gave the property of the United States to the 
amount of millions to unrepentant rebels. He connived at, 
if he did not consent to, the massacres of Memphis and New 
Orleans, and he is justly held responsible in history and be- 
fore God for the murder of thousands of Southern Union 
men. 

Now, sir, the logic of this contest, so far as his acts de- 
velop it, is simply that the Congress of the nation and all the 
departments shall submit to his domination in the g"overn- 
ment, and no man can have watched the vain efforts of this 
Congress to tie his hands by statutory enactments without 
feeling- a sense of shame. Every effort of Congress to secure 
a restoration of the Union by the passage of reconstruction 
acts, and supplementary reconstruction acts, has failed thus 
far because of this man, who, with the immense patronage 
which he has in his hands, and with an entire disregard of 
Constitution, laws, and oaths, has been able to evade them 
all, and eventuall}', if not removed, he will bring on a con- 
flict which can end onl}' in civil war unless Congress surren- 
ders. Sir, his purpose has been, and it will continue to be, 
unless he is arrested and brought to the bar of the Senate for 
trial, to usurp the whole power of the government, and to 
clothe the late rebel States with authority to cast their elec- 
toral votes in the pending Presidential election either for 
himself or some candidate of his choice, and if, when the 
electoral votes come to be counted, there were enough loyal 
states voting- for the candidate of his choice, whether it be 
himself or some one else, to make up a majority with the ille- 
gal vote of the rebel States, he and his friends would insist 
on their being counted, and if Congress refused he would 
inaugurate a civil war, and at the same time the man whom 
they would claim to have elected. Thus we should have 



. —454-- 

inaug-urated in the capital of tlie republic two Presidents, 
and probably two Congresses. 

Tbis, in my opinion, has been from tbe start tbe delib- 
erate purpose of this man, and I am amazed tbat g-entlemen 
on tbe other side should have felt ft to be their duty to give 
this man even a quasi support, and to apologize for his acts 
for the sake of the feeble aid which he g-ives them politically 
and the spoils of office which tbey have been able to secure 
for their friends. Sir, I want g-entlemen to remember that 
by their defense of this man, whose violations of the Consti- 
tution and laws of the country is unquestioned, they g-o into 
history as a party to his crimes. 

"We attempted to tie this man's hands by putting- a clause 
in the Army bill, to which I wish for a moment to call your 
attention. I refer to the second section of the Army Appro- 
priation bill, passed March 2, 1867, which the President 
signed, but returned it with a protest. The section reads 
thus : 

" Sec. 2. And bs it further enacted. That the head- 
quarters of the General of the Army of the United States 
shall be at the City of Washington, and all orders and in- 
structions relating- to military operations issued by the Presi- 
dent or Secretary of War shall be issued through the General 
of thQ Army, and in case of his inabilit}-, through the next 
in rank. The General of the Army shall not be removed, 
suspended, or relieved from command or assigned to duty 
elsewhere than at said headquarters, except at his own re- 
quest, without the previous approval of the Senate; and any 
orders or instructions relating- to military operations issued 
contrary to the requirements of this section shall be null and 
void ; and any officer who shall issue orders or instructions 
contrary to the provisions of this section shall be deemed 
g-uilty of a misdemeanor in office ; and any officer of the army 
who shall transmit, convey, or obey any orders or instructions 
so issued contrary to the provisions of this section, knowing- 
that such orders were so issued, shall be liable to imprison- 
ment for not less than two nor more than twenty years, upon 
conviction thereof in any court of competent jurisdiction." 

This was designed to keep Grant, the General of the 
Army, at his headquarters here, as a measure of precaution 
ag"ainst any attempt of the President to disperse Congress by 
force, and to provide that every military order of the Presi- 



— 455 — 

dent sliould g-o tliroug-li tlie General-in-Chief, and meet liis 
approval before subordinates sliould obey it. We all know 
how this act has been violated both in letter and spirit. 
Sickles, Pope, Ord, Sheridan, and almost every officer within 
the President's reach have been removed from their com- 
mands, and he has attempted to humiliate them because of 
their obedience to the law of the land, and their faithful exe- 
cution of the duties assi^ed them. Experience has demon- 
strated the fact that there has not been wisdom or sharpness 
enoug-h in this Congress to tie the hands of this man. And 
at last there appears to be nothing" left but to bring* him to 
trial either for the acts of Friday last, or to include with 
them every oth: r act of which he has been guilty since his 
accession to power. 

Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives is ag-ain to 
be brought to a direct vote upon a question, the importance 
of which cannot well be overestimated; a vote which shall 
test the fidelity of every Representative to his constitutional 
obligation. Again Ve are to be brought face to face with 
the man who is recognized by every loyal citizen, and by 
every rebel, as a public enemy; a man, who, if not before, 
certainly since, his accession to power has been recog-nized as 
the friend and the ally of the late conspirators ag-ainst the 
nation's life and against the nation's chosen chief; a man 
who has proven himself a more faithful representative and a 
more formidable ally of **the lost cause" than could any 
g-eneral of the late rebel armies, had he been in his place. 
Dupllcitj, usurpations of power, and violations of law have 
marked the public and private career of this extraordinary 
man from the time of his unfortunate accession to the presi- 
dential chair. 

I may be pardoned If I repeat what I said on the 7th of 
March last, when introducing" into this House, by direction of 
the caucus of the Republican members, a resolution to con- 
tinue this impeachment investigation: 

"If any loyal man had doubted before, he could doubt 
no longer, that while this man remains in the presidential 
office there can be no tranquility in this countrj^, no security 
for property, liberty, and life to loyal citizens in the South, 
no such restoration of this government as the Union army 



— 456 — 

and the Union citizens of this nation have decreed, no safety: 
for a sing-le hour from rebellion or revolution. " 

Sir, if this be true — and I challeng-e any g"entleman to 
controvert it — if this be true, dare we long-er postpone, dare 
we longer shrink from the exercise of that power with which 
the Constitution has clothed us, to rescue the g-overnment 
from the hands of the usurper, and thus proclaim to the 
world that this is a government of law, and not an irrespon- 
sible despotism, beyond the control of law, and in the hands 
of an ignorant, cunning, and unscrupulous man, who was 
thrown to the surface by the waves of the late rebellion, and 
elevated to the chief executive office of the nation, not by 
the voluntary suffrages of a free people, but by the hands of 
an assassin. 

Mr. Speaker, time and truth evermore vindicate the 
right. When this House, but two short months ago, voted 
down this proposition, I said let the loyal men of the nation 
keep heart and await the logic of events. I know that by 
the vote which this House is to give to'day I shall be vindi- 
cated, as will be every man who has been from the first for 
impeachment. But though I shall be thus vindicated, this is 
not to me an hour of exultation and triumph, but of sadness, 
rather. Far rather would I that every charge which I have 
made against the acting President of the United States 
should fall to the ground if untrue, than that I should be 
sustained if wrong. Far rather would I that the dark sus- 
picions which have taken possession of the public mind 
should be dispelled by unquestioned evidence than that they 
should be true. 

For my country's honor, and for the sake of human 
nature itself, I could hope that it were otherwise than as I 
believe. Rather would I that this man, after his accession to 
the Presidency, had so conducted himself as to have com- 
manded the confidence and respect of the country; that he 
had so administered the government as to bring the country, 
torn and bleeding as it has been, back to the paths of peace, 
and thus secured its unity and prosperity. 

But he has failed in all this, and not only failed, but has 
so conducted himself that from the evidence before me I am 
compelled, upon my conscience and upon my judgment, to 



— 457 — 

declare that I believe him guilty of usurping- powers not dele- 
g-ated to him and of violating- deliberately the Constitution 
and the laws of the land. 

In that he has conspired with the late public enemy and 
attempted, by the usurpation of the legislative authority, to 
organize State g-overnments in the late insurgent States, and 
to restore the late rebel leaders to all the rights and privi- 
leg-es which they forfeited by the rebellion. 

In that he has corruptly, and in violation of law, used 
the appointing- power. 

In that he has corruptly used the veto power. 

In that he has corruptly used the pardoning- power. 

In that he has corruptly disposed of public property of 
the United States. 

In that he has corruptly interfered in elections, and com- 
mitted acts and conspired with others to commit acts which, 
in contemplation of the Constitution, are high crimes and 
misdemeanors. 

Believing- that Andrew Johnson is g-uilty of all this and 
more, I feel that it is our duty, I think it to be a necessity of 
our condition, for the safety of the nation and of our insti- 
tutions, that he should be impeached. I hold that it is neces- 
sary, if not for our safety to-day, at least to teach those who 
dhall come after him a lesson; a lesson which shall vindicate 
the majesty of the law and test the practical working- of our 
matchless Constitution. 

For these reasons, sir, and others which I might give if I 
had time, I give my voice and my vote to arraign and put on 
trial before the high court of the nation, Andrew Johnson, 
acting President of the United States. 

The resolution was adopted; yeas, 126; nays, 47, as fol- 
lows: 

Yeas — Messrs. Allison, Ames, Anderson, Arneli, Delos 
R. Ashley, James M. Ashley, Bailey, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, 
Beaman, Beaty, Benton, Bingham, Blaine, Blair, Boutwell, 
Broomall, Buckland, Butler, Cake, Churchill, Reader W. 
Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Coburn, Cook, Cornell, Covode, 
Cullum, Dawes, Dodge, Driggs, Eckley, Eggieston, Eliot, 
Farnsworth.. Ferriss, Ferry, Fields, Gravely, Griswold, 
Halsey, Harding, Higby, Hill, Hooper, Hopkins, Asahel W. 



— 458 — 

Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Hulburd, Hunter, Ing-ersoll, 
Jenckes, Judd, Julian, Kelley, Kelsey,, Keteliom, Kitchen, 
Laflin, Georg-e V Lawrence, William "La\.^rG£ice5 Lincoln, 
Loan, Log-an, Loug-hridg-e, Lydch, Malloir\/, Mcrvin, Mc- 
Carthy, McClurg-, Mercur, Miller, Moore, MooriiGi^dg Morrell 
Mullins, Myers, Newcomb, Nunn, O'Neil, Orth.^'Pr:.mo, Plants 
Poland, Polsley, Price, Raum, Robertson, Sav\;}"Gr, Schcnck, 
Scoficid, Selye, Shanks, Smith, Spaldin?^, B-'-ajckwcather, 
Aarou F, Stevens, Thaddeus Stevens, Stoker,, 'i^affe, 'rrLylor, 
Trowbridge, Twichell, Upson, Van Aerman^ Burt Van Horn, 
Van Wyck, Ward, Cadwallader C. Washburn;, Elihu B. 
Washburn, William B. Washburn, Welker, Thomas Williams, 
James F. Wilson, John T. Wilson, Stephen F. YVilson, 
Windom, Woodbridg-e, and the Speaker — 126. 

Nays — Messrs. Adams, Archer, Axtell, Barnes, Barnum, 
Beck, Boyer, Brooks, Burr, Gary, Chanler, Eldridg-e, Fo>;, 
Getz, Glossbrenner, Golladay, Grover, Haight, Holman, 
Hotchkiss, Richard D. Hubbard, Humphrey, Johnson, Jones, 
Kerr, Knott, Marshall, McCormick, McCullough, Morgan, 
Morrisse}^, Mungen, Niblack, Nicholson, Phelps, Pruyn, 
Randall, Ross, Sitgreaves, Stewart, Stone, Taber, Lawrence 
S. Trimbel, Van Auken, Van Trump, Wood and Woodward 
—47. 

Not Voting — Messrs. Benjamin, Dixon, Donnelly, Ela, 
Finney, Garfield, Hawkins, Koontz, Maynard, Pomeroy, 
Robinson, Shellabarger, Thomas, John Trimble, Robert T. 
Van Horn, Henry D. Washburn and William Williams — 17, 



SPKECH 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO. 



Delivered in the House of Representatives, 
May 29, 1868. 



AMEND THE CONSTITUTION — ABOLISHMENT .OF THE OFFICE OF 
VICE-PRESIDENT — NEITHER CAUCUSES, CONVENTIONS, ELEC- 
TORAL COLLEGES, NOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
TO INTERVENE BETWEEN THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CHOICE 
OF A PRESIDENT. 



The House being- in Committee of the Whole on the 
State of the Union — 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said: 

Mr. Chairman: It is now ten years since I became a 
member of this House. During- that time I have submitted 
more than once propositions looking to an amendment of the 
national Constitution, substantially such as I now ask leave 
to present. Heretofore, when introducing- these propositions, 
I have done so without arg-ument, and they have slept the 
sleep which knows no waking- in the committees to which, 
under our rules, they must be referred. 

I now ask the indulg-ence of the House while I submit to 
gentlemen present and to the country some of the considera- 
tions which have induced me ag-ain to bring- this subject to 
public notice. 

The proposition which I now send to the Clerk's desk to 
he read, provides that the President of the United States 
shall be elected for but a single term of four years, and pro- 
poses the abolition of the of&ce of Vice-President. If 

(459) 



— 460 — 

adopted, it also secures the abolition of the present system of 
appointing- presidential electors, as the legislatures of the 
several States may provide, and makes it impossible for the 
election of a President to devolve, as now, on the House of 
Representatives, but provides that in case of death, resigna- 
tion, or removal of the President from office, that the two 
Houses in joint convention shall elect to fill the vacancy, each 
Senator and Representative having- one vote. Its adoption 
will relieve the people of the despotism of party caucuses 
and party conventions, and thereafter commit the election of 
President to a direct vote of the people by ballot. The Clerk 
will please read. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution 

of the United States.* 

Resolved by ths Senate and House of Representa- 
tives OF THE United States op America in Congress 
ASSEMBLED (two thirds of both Houses concurring), That 
the following be proposed as an amendment to said Constitu- 
tion, which, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths 
of the several States, shall be valid, to all intents and pur- 
poses, as part of said Constitution, to wit: 

Amend section three of article one, by striking out 
clauses four and five, which read: 

" The Vice-President of the United States shall be Presi- 
dent of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be 
equally divided. 

"The Senate shall choose their other of&cers and also a 
President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, 
or when he shall exercise the office of President of the 
United States." 

And insert the following: 

" The Senate shall choose their own presiding and other 
officers." 

In article two, section four, strike out the words "Vice- 
President." 

Amend section one, article two, by striking out the 
words " together with the Vice-President chosen for the same 
term;" so that it will read: 

The executive power shall be vested in the President of 
the United States of America; he shall hold his office during 
the term of four years, and be elected as follows. 



♦Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, presented this proposed amendment to the 
Senate, on the 6th of May, 1872, with two or three verbal chang-es. 



— 461 — 

In lieu of clauses two, three, four and six of article two 
and of article twelve of the amendments insert the following*: 

The qualified electors shall meet at the usual places of 
holding- elections in their respective States on the first Mon- 
day in April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and seventy-two, and on the first Monday in April 
every four years thereafter, under such rules and regulations 
as the Congress may by law prescribe, and vote by ballot for 
a citizen qualified under this Constitution to be President of 
the United States, and the result of such election in each 
State shall be certified, sealed, and forwarded to the seat of 
g-overnment of the United States in such manner as the Con- 
g-ress may by law direct. 

The Congress shall be in session on the third Monday in 
May after such election, and on the Tuesday next succeeding" 
the third Monda}^ in May, if a quorum of each House sha.ll 
be present, and if not, immediately on the assemblage of such 
quorum, the Senators and members of the House of Repre- 
sentatives shall meet in the Representative Chamber in joint 
convention, and the President of the Senate, in presence of 
the Senators and Representatives thus assembled, shall open 
all the returns of said election and declare the result. The 
person having- the g-reatest number of votes for President 
shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the 
■whole number of votes cast; if no person have such majority, 
or if the person having such majority decline the office or die 
before the counting- of the vote, then the President of the 
Senate shall so proclaim; whereupon the joint convention 
shall order the proceeding-s to be officially published, stating- 
particularly the number of votes given for each person for 
President. 

Another election shall thereupon take place on the second 
Tuesday of October next succeeding-, at which election the 
duly qualified electors shall again meet at the usual places of 
holding- elections in their respective States and vote for one 
of the persons then living having- the highest number of 
votes, not exceeding five on the list voted for as President at 
the preceding- election in April, and the result of such elec- 
tion in each State shall be certified, sealed, and forwarded to 
the seat of the g-overnment of the United States as provided 
by law. 

On the third Tuesday in Deceniber after such second 
election, or as soon thereafter as a quorum of each House 
shall be present, the Senators and members of the House 
of Representatives shall ag-ain meet in joint convention, and 
the President of the Senate, in presence of the Senators 
and Representatives thus assembled, shall open all the 
returns of said election and declare the person having- the 



— 462 — 

hig-hest number of votes duly elected President for the ensu- 
ing" term. 

No person thus elected to the office of President shall 
thereafter be elig-ible to be re-elected. 

In case of the removal of the President from office by 
impeachment, or of his death, resig-nation, or inability to 
discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same 
shall devolve temporarily on the President of the Senate, if 
there be one; if not, then on the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, if there be one; and if not, then the member 
of the executive department senior in years shall act as Presi- 
dent. If there be no officer of an executive department, then 
the Senator senior in years shall act until a successor is 
chosen and qualified. 

If Congress be in session at the time of the death, disa- 
bility, or removal of the President, the Senators and Repre- 
sentatives shall meet in joint convention under such rules 
and regulations as the Congress may by law prescribe, and 
proceed to elect by viva voce vote a President to fill such 
vacancy. Each Senator and Representative having- one vote, 
a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a majority in each 
House of the Senators and Representatives duly elected and 
qualified, and a majority of all the votes g-iven shall be neces- 
sary to the choice of a President. The person thus elected 
as President shall discharge all the powers and duties of 
said office until the inaug-uration of the President elected at' 
the next reg-ular election. 

If the Cong"ress be not in session then the acting Presi-' 
dent shall forthwith issue a proclamation convening- Congress 
within sixty days after the death or disability of the Presi- 
dent. 

On the assembling of a quorum in each House the Sena- 
tors and Representatives shall meet in joint convention and 
elect a President as hereinbefore provided. 

Amend article fourteen proposed by the Thirty-ninth 
Cong-ress by striking- out section two and inserting- the fol- 
lowing: 

Sec. 2. Every citizen of the United States twenty-one 
years of age and upward (except Indians not taxed and per- 
sons NON compos) shall be an elector in any State or Territory 
in which he may have resided one year next preceding- the 
election at which he shall offer a vote. Each State shall pre- 
scribe uniform rules for the registration of all qualified elec- 
tors residing- therein and complete the said enrollment at 
least twenty days before each presidential election; they shall 
provide b}'- law ag-ainst fraud at elections, and may disfran- 
chise any person for participation in rebellion against the 



— 463 — 

United States, or for tlie commission of an act which is 
felony at common law. 

Sec. 3. Representatives in Congress shall be appor- 
tioned among- the several States according- to the number of 
inhabitants in each. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. On these several propositions I 
intend to ask the judgment of the country and eventually a 
vote upon them in this House. 



SHALL THE OFFICE OF VICE-PRESIDENT BE ABOLISHED? 

The proposition to abolish the office of Vice-President 
will, I trust, commend itself to the considerate men of all 
parties. The creation of the office was objected to by some 
of the ablest men of the Revolution as "unnecessary and 
dang-erous." Experience has confirmed the wisdom of their 
opposition. The Vice-President is, as all know, a superfluous 
officer, having- few duties to perform, and those might more 
properly devolve upon a member of the Senate, selected 
because of his fitness, as the duty of presiding in the House 
devolves upon a member of the House who is elected Speaker. 

The objection to the selection of a member of the Senate 
as presiding officer would hold equally good against selecting 
a member of the House of Representatives for its presiding 
officer. Indeed, the power conferred on the Speaker of the 
House is far greater than is conferred on the Vice-President 
or President pro tempore of the Senate. 

In the House the Speaker appoints all the committees 
and can participate in debate on the floor of the House. He 
may also vote at any time he so elects. In the Senate the 
regular standing committees are selected by a party caucus, 
and appointed or confirmed afterward in open Senate by a 
vote of that body. The Vice-President is not permitted to 
debate any proposition before the Senate, and can only vote 
when there is an equal division, while the Speaker can vote 
at any time if he desires to do so, but is not compelled to 
vote except in case of a tie. 

The country has been distracted and its peace imperiled 
more than once because of the existence of the office of Vice- 
President. The nation would have been spared the terrible 



— 464 — 

ordeal throug-h which it passed in the contest between Jeffer- 
son and Burr in 1801 had there been no vice-presidential 
ofl&ce. Had there been no such office we would have been 
spared the perfidy of a Tyler, the betrayal of a Fillmore, and 
the baseness and infamy of a Johnson. 

Party interest and partj^ necessity, under our present 
convention system, usually seeks to compensate the friends of 
a defeated presidential candidate in any national convention 
by conceding" to them the privileg-e of naming- the candidate 
for the Vice-Presidency." 

This is done in order to soften the sting- of defeat and to 
bind the defeated party in the convention to the more certain 
support of a ticket which a larg-e minority, and sometimes 
even a majority, of the party would refuse to support at the 
election but for such compromises, aided by the despotism of 
party caucuses and party conventions. Often the mere ques- 
tion of locality has more to do with the nomination of a 
Vice-President than the question of his fitness. 

The country rejoices with me in the fact that no such 
narrow consideration controlled the action of the Republi- 
can convention at Chicago in selecting- our honored Speaker 
as the candidate of the party for Vice-President. Not to 
locality is he indebted for that position, for locality was 
ag-ainst him, but rather to his long- and faithful public ser- 
vices, his fidelity to Republican principles, and to his personal 
worth is he indebted for the disting-uished honor of being 
associated on the same presidential ticket with the most 
extraordinary man of this or any age. 

While each of the candidates for President and Vice- 
President professes to subscribe to the so-called platform of 
principles adopted by the conventions which nominate them, 
they nevertheless represent, as a rule, opposing factions in 
the party, and often at heart antag-onistic ideas, which are 
only subordinated for the sake of party success. This was 
the case with Harrison and Tyler, Taylor and Fillmore, Lin- 
coln and Johnson. When each of these Vice-Presidents on 
the death of the President-elect came into the presidential 
of&ce he attempted to build up a party which should secure 
his re-election. For this purpose they did not scruple to 
betray the g-reat bodj' of men who elected them to the office 



— 465 — 

of Vice-President, nor did they hesitate at the open and 
shameless use of public patronage for that purpose. The 
weakest and most dang-erous part of our executive system for 
the personal safety of the President is a defect in the Con- 
stitution itself, I find it in that clause of the Constitution 
which provides that the Vice-President shall, on the death or 
inability of the President, succeed to his office. The presi- 
dential office is thus undefended and invites temptation. The 
life of but one man must often stand between the success of 
unscrupulous ambition, the designs of mercenary cliques, or 
the fear and hatred of conspirators. 

"Whether pro-slavery conspirators, representing party 
cliques, caused the death of Harrison and Taylor I know not. 
I am confident, however, that a widespread conspiracy, 
representing the pro-slavery rebel faction in the nation, was 
organized for the purpose of assassinating Mr. Lincoln, and 
all know of its success. That the conspirators who plotted 
the murder of Mr. Lincoln had a purpose to subserve, which 
they supposed could not be accomplished while he remained 
in the presidential office, will hardly be questioned. 

Mr. Chairman, history will record the fact that the con- 
spiracy which resulted in the assassination of Mr. Lincoln 
was the offspring of the rebellion, and may yet give political 
success to a cause, which millions of rebels failed to secure af- 
ter a deadly war of four years. Had assassination don:^ more 

THAN IT DID IT WOULD HAVE OVERREACHED ITSELl*. By Spar- 
ing and using Andrew Johnson it gained a temporary tri- 
umph for those whom it represented. 

Whatever may have been, and whatever may now be, my 
suspicions as to the complicity of Andrew Johnson in the 
assassination plot, the schemes and hopes op the conspira- 
tors CAN EASILY BE EXPLAINED UPON THE HYPOTHESIS OF HIS 
INNOCENCE, AND HIS ENTIRE IGNORANCE OF THEIR BLOODY PUR- 
POSES. Let me present it from that standpoint. 

The failure of the rebellion found a large number of 
disappointed and desperate men in the late rebel States under 
disability for treason and rebellion. If justice was meted out 
to them they knew that the leaders ought to be arrested, tried, 
and punished, and that if the law was administered their prop- 
30 



— 466 — 

erty was subject to confiscation. The leaders expected, in any 

event, to be politically disfranchised, if they escaped imprison- 
ment, banishment, or the confiscation of their propert3\ Hav- 
ing- staked all on the hazard of a die and lost, their condition 
was desperate, and to escape punishments, confiscations, or 
political disfranchisement thousands of them would not hesi- 
tate at any desperate expedient which promised success. 
The men who without cause had inaug-urated fratricidal war, 
who had murdered unarmed Union soldiers after their sur- 
render, who had deliberately starved to death thousands of 
our heroic men at Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle Isle, and 
Libby prison, and committed enormities upon the living- and 
the dead which no human tong-ue can describe, would not 
hesitate at taking the life of any one man by assassination, 
however exalted his position, if thereby it secured them 
exemption fi'om the punishment due their crimes. 

On surveying the situation they found that the Republi- 
can party had, by a blunder, which in such an hour was 
worse than a crime, elected Andrew Johnson Vice-President of 
the United States. I can imagine how carefully they examined 
his antecedents, his personal and political history ; how they 
weig"hed well his words, and made themselves familiar with 
his public and private acts, his weaknesses and his ambition. 
During- this examination they undoubtedly learned his view 
of the "situation " before he left Tennessee to be inaug-urated 
Vice-President. They heard of his declaration to Stanley 
Mathews at Cincinnati while on his way to the capital, before 
his inauguration, and to others afterward, as to the neces- 
sity OF REORGANIZING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. They Were 

informed of what he had repeatedly said he would do about 
reconstruction, "if he were President." They knew of his 
CONDITION when inaug-urated Vice-President, and that to 
THEM WAS AN AUGURY OF SUCCESS. Of his vanity, his unscru- 
pulousness, his love of power, and his capacities as a dema- 
gogue they were fully advised. They satisfied themselves 
that, with proper management, he could be used to shield 
them from punishment, and, perchance, restore them to polit- 
ical power. From that moment the doom of Mr. Lincoln was 
sealed. The pretense that Mr. Johnson was to navE been 

ASSASSINATED, WAS NEVER BELIEVED BY ANY BUT WILLING 



— 467 — 

i»UPES. The assassination of Mr. Jolinson would liave defeated 
the hopes and purposes of the conspirators, and no one knew 
this better than they. 

After Mr. Johnson came into the presidential office, the 
conspirators and their friends at once openly and unblush- 
ingly surrounded him, flattered him, took possession of him, 
and promised him a re-election and a brilliant future. They 
reminded him oe his oi.d political, record, of his denun- 
ciation oe abolitionists, oe his utterances to stanley 
Mathews and others " as to the necessity op reorganiz- 
ing the Democratic party," by a union with conservative 
Republicans, leaving the " anti-slavery element in the 
Republican party to sluff off," as he repeatedly ex- 
pressed IT. All this, I submit, could have happened and 
Mr. Johnson be free from any criminally g-uilty knowledg-e of 
the assassination, either before or after the act. 

I only present this panoramic view, of what has trans- 
pired and is now history, to illustrate how weak and indefen- 
sible in this particular is the presidential office ; so that I may 
appeal to the nation to fortify it against this dang-er, by re- 
moving- the temptation now presented to conspirators and 
assassins, and thus make the presidential office a citadel 
against which they may hurl themselves in vain. 

Adopt this plan, and the occupant of the presidential 
office is effectually guarded from all political conspiracies 
which thrive by assassination. It also precludes the possi- 
bility of an interregnum in that office. In addition to the 
President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, each of 
the eight members of the Cabinet in turn, and after them the 
entire Senate, stand ready to assume, temporarily, the duties 
of the presidential office until Congress can elect a successor. 
It would not be possible for any conspiracy to succeed which 
contemplated the wholesale assassination of entire Cabinets 
and Senates. 

If, as I propose in this amendment, there had been no 
T'ice-President, and the Constitution had provided, as I sug- 
gest, that on the death, resignation, or removal of the Pres- 
ident the vacancy should be filled forthwith by the election 
of any citizen of the United States eligible under the Consti- 
tution, each Senator and Representative having one vote, the 



— 468— 

nation would never have been cursed with the Tyler, Fill- 
more or Johnson administrations, nor is it to be supposed 
that Mr. Lincoln would have been assassinated, because it 
would not have been possible to foretell who would have been 
elected his successor. If this amendment had been part of 
the Constitution the country would have been spared much 
anxiety during- the late impeachment trial, and Senators who 
constituted the court of impeachment would have been spared 
much of the suspicion and criticism to which they were sub- 
ject. No man could then have known in advance who would 
have been the choice of the tv/o Plouses of Cong-ress, in joint 
convention, for acting- President to fill the vacancy. The 
question of Mr. Johnson's successor would, therefore, never 
have disturbed or embarrassed the proceedings of the Senate 
during" the recent impeachment trial. 

THE ABOI.1TION OF PRESJDEINTIAI, EI^ECTORS AND NATIONAI. 

CONVENTIONS. 

Instead of the intervention of presidential electors, I 
propose the election of President by a direct vote of the peo- 
ple by ballot, on the democratic principle, so fully recog-nized 
in our theory of government, "that all political power is in- 
herent in the people and of right belongs to the people." I 
hold that it is safer and better for the people to exercise this 
power directly, without the intervention of nominating con- 
ventions or presidential electors or any intermediate agency. 
To withhold from the qualified electors of the nation the right 
to vote directly for the choice of a President is a violation of 
the democratic idea, an act at war with the fundamental 
principles of our Government, and utterly indefensible. 

The adoption of the proposition which I have made will 
secure at once the abolition of the plan of electing a Presi- 
dent by indirection, in the selection of electors chosen as 
now, by a plurality of the vo^es in each State, thus enabling 
the minority, when there are three or more candidates, by 
concentrating their votes on one electoral ticket, to secure 
the election of their candidate. This plan will also becure 
the early abolition of all national nominating conventions. 



— 469 — 

and eventually of all State and county conventions, thus 
relieving" every voter from the despotism of party cliques and 
party caucuses. 

This provision is itself enough to commend the proposed 
amendment to the favorable consideration of the gfreat body 
of the American people who have so long" been controlled by 
the despotism of party conventions. 

As a rule, not one voter in ten is consulted under our 
oresent caucus system as to his first choice of a candidate for 
any office, and yet when nominations are made, no matter 
whether fairly or by fraud, each voter is compelled to sup- 
port the nominee of his party or aid in the election of the 
candidate of the opposite party. 

For years I have been opposed to the present system of 
nominating- all candidates for elective offices, including" that 
of President of the United States. I have long held that all 
nominations should be made directl)^ by the people under the 
authority and protection of law. In other words, that there 
ought to be two elections for all officers, to be elected by the 
•people, unless at the first election one of the candidates 
should receive a majority of all the votes cast, an event not 
probable at any election, and certainly not for President nor 
for Governor of a State or a Representative in Congress. If 
any one should receive a majority of all the votes cast at the 
first election he would be declared duly elected, and there 
would be no second election to fill that office. If there were 
no choice at the first election for President, I provide in the 
proposed amendment that all candidates but the five, or pos- 
sibly it may be advisable to say all but the four highest 
voted for at the first election, shall be dropped. 

If I were making a State constitution or a law for the 
election of any elective officer, I would provide that at the 
second election all but the four, or possibly all but the three, 
highest voted for at the first election for any office should be 
dropped, and that at the second election, only the candidates 
thus nominated should be voted for; that no other votes 
should be counted; and if there were three candidates at the 
final election, that a plurality of the votes cast, should elect as 
now. 



— 470 — 

This plan, as all can see, would supersede the present 
corrupt and unsatisfactory convention system, and enable 
every elector to vote without caucus dictation at the first elec- 
tion for his firbt choice, and without fear of electing- the can- 
didate of the opposition because of scattering- votes. 

After the most careful and deliberate examination of the 
question I am compelled to confess that the convention system 
now in use by both the great political parties of the nation is 
demoralizing- in its practical working-s, unfair in its represen- 
tation of the g-reat body of voters, and repug-nant to the 
principles of true democracy and republicanism. 

I look upon the present convention system for the nomi- 
nation of a President as far more objectionable than the old 
congressional caucus system which it superseded, and which I 
would not restore if I could. 

The theory is that the national conventions of both par- 
ties are composed of deleg-ates fresh from the people, elected 
by the people, and that they represent the people. All know 
that, practically, nothing- can be further from the truth. 
Hic:tory will confirm what I say, when I declare that a 
majority of the national conventions of both parties which 
have been held in the past, not only have not reflected the 
wishes of the party for which they assumed to act in making- 
nominations, but that they have repeatedly and deliberately 
disreg-arded their known wishes. 

Instead of our national. State, or district conventions 
being- made up of delegates elected directly by the people, 
they are made up of delegates selected by packed committees 
in State conventions composed of delegates appointed on the 
recommendation of like committees appointed by other dele- 
gates in county conventions, who, in the first instance, are 
often nominated in township and ward caucuses, which are 
packed by the leaders of cliques and controlled by political 
machinery in the hands of a few, without regard to the 
wishes or interests of the voters for whom they assume to act. 
Thus the delegates in our national conventions are always 
removed threo, and usually four, degrees from the people. 
Indeed, the people seldom have a voice in the election of the 
first dclegoites from townships and v/ards, owing to the polit- 
ical machinery employed by the few who work it. If the 



— 471 — 

voice of the people is partially heard in the ward and town- 
ship caucuses, which is well nig-h impossible under our pres- 
ent practice, at each successive remove from the people their 
will is less reg-arded, until at last when it reaches our nation- 
al conveijtions no voice is heard but the clamor of the office- 
seeker and the violent contentions of warring- factions. Es- 
pecially is this the case in the Democratic party when they 
adopt the two-thirds rule. As to consultation and deliberation 
at such conventions, that is impossible, nor is it now ex- 
pected. 

Of tener than otherwise the deleg-ates who attend these con- 
ventions vote for men of whom they know but little and of whose 
political record they know absolutely nothing-. Witness the 
action of the Republican convention at Baltimore which nom- 
inated Andrew Johnson. The indecent scramble of the bul- 
let-headed politicians and demag-og-ues for the honor of first 
announcing" the name of Andrew Johnson as a candidate be- 
fore that convention was one of the most disg-usting- exhibi- 
tions I ever witnessed. 

A majority who attend such conventions are always 
clamorous for prompt action and adjournment, never for 
consultation. They are usually more anxious about the size 
of their hotel bills than about the record of the candidate to 
be nominated. Their object is g-ained when their names are 
recorded as deleg-ates to the convention and that they have 
voted for the nomination of the successful man. 

Benton, in his "Thirty Years' View," in speaking- of 
national conventions and comparing- them with the cong-res- 
sional caucus system, uses the following- lang-uag-e : 

"But it [the convention system] quickly deg-enerated 
and became obnoxious to all the objections to Cong-ress 
caucus nominations and many others besides. Members of 
Cong-ress still attended them, either as deleg-ates or as lobby 
manag-ers. Persons attended as deleg-ates who had no con- 
stituency [as deleg-ates, professing- to be from Texas and 
other States, appeared at the Chicag-o Republican convention 
in I860]. Deleg-ates attended upon equivocal appointment. 
Double sets of deleg-ates sometimes came from the State, and 
either were admitted or repulsed, as suited the views of the 
majority. Proxies were invented. Many deleg-ates attended 
with the sole view of establishing- a claim for office, and voted 
accordingly. The two-thirds rule was invented to enable the 



— 472 — 

minority to control tlie majority, and the whole proceeding 
became anomalous and irresponsible and subversive of the 
will of the people, leaving- them no more control over the 
nomination than the subjects of king's have over the birth of 
the child which is born to rule over them. King- caucus is as 
potent as any other king- in this respect ; for whoever g-ets 
the nomination, no matter how effected, becomes the candi- 
date of the party, from the necessity of union ag-ainst the 
opposite party, and from the indisposition of the g^reat States 
to g-o into the House of Representatives to be balanced by 
the small ones. This is the mode of making- Presidents, 
practiced by both parties now. It is the virtual election ! 
And thus the election of the President and Vice-President of 
the United States has passed, not only from the colleg-e of 
electors, to which the Constitution confided it, and from the 
people to whom the practice under the Constitution g-ave it, 
and from the House of Representatives, which the Constitu- 
tion provided as ultimate arbiter, but has g-one to an anom- 
alous, irresponsible body, unknown to law or Constitution^ 
unknown to the early ag-es of our Government, and of which 
a larg-e proportion of the members composing- it, and a much 
larg-er proportion of interlopers attending- it, have no other 
view, either in attending- or in promoting the nomination of 
any particular man, than to g-et one elected who will enable 
them to eat out of the public crib — who will g-ive them a 
key to the public crib." 

I do not overdraw the picture, nor did the g-reat Missouri 
Senator. 

The demoralization inseparable from such disgraceful 
proceeding-s cannot be overstated. As Mr. Benton says, a ma- 
jority of the deleg-ates who attend national conventions do so 
for the purpose of establishing- claims for office, and we all 
know that they are usually candidates for an appointment at 
the hands of the President whom their votes help to nominate. 
"When there are three or more rival candidates for President 
before a national convention, and a balance of power party 
can be formed, they do not hesitate to demand as a condition 
to the vote of their clique or State the promise of a Cabinet 
appointment. This unblushing- demand has been made as a 
condition to the support of cliques and factions at more than 
one convention and acceded to. In pursuance of such arrang-e- 
ments Cabinet ministers have been appointed, and were thus 
enabled by their official position to provide offices for their 
friends, who, as delegates, voted as required in convention. 



— 473 — 

Entire delegations from States sometimes permit themselves 
to be bartered and pledg-ed for a candidate on condition that 
one or more of their own number shall have a desig"nated 
official appointment, and sometimes even for the empty honor 
of having" one of their number act as the presiding* officer of 
the convention ; and this is called representing- the people. 
Thus, in our national conventions, where oftener than other- 
wise there are more than two candidates, the most unscrupu- 
lous are the most likely to succeed. A few leading- men com- 
bining" for Cabinet positions or foreig-n appointments can, by 
concentrating" their votes, secure a majority in the conven- 
tion, and thus nominate any candidate upon whom they 
unite. If this has been and may be by combinations such as 
I have described, it is certain to be repeated ag"ain under like 
temptations. 

The desire for place and power can, as it has done, bring" 
the most hostile political leaders tog"ether. " If we combine,'^ 
they whisper to each other, "we shall conquer. If we divide, 
we shall be conquered." With the cohesive power of self- 
interest to urge them on they combine, and b}^ the aid of par- 
ty conventions make nominations in the name of the people 
to which the people are opposed, and thus live upon the Gov- 
ernment at their expense. 

The Republican national convention for 1864, which re- 
nominated Mr. Lincoln, and the Republican convention which 
meets at Chicago on the 20th of this month, formally to rat- 
ify the wishes of the people in placing" General Grant in 
nomination, are exceptions to this rule. The man of destiny 
is made a candidate in spite of cliques and cabals. As no 
combinations could have been made by party cliques formi- 
dable enough in 1864 to have defeated the nomination and 
election of Mr. Lincoln, so none could be made this year of 
sufficient magnitude to defeat the nomination and election of 
General Grant. Such was the condition of the country in 
1864, and such is its condition to-day, that the people with a 
unanimity unprecedented commanded, and the political 
schemers, making a virtue of necessity, yielded, and were as 
clamorous for Lincoln in 1864 as they are to-day for General 
Grant. 



— 474- 

As a rule, however, national conventions do not, as I 
have shown, -nominate the first choice of either party. 
Especially is this the case with the Democratic party. The 
two-thirds rule makes their cliques more formidable, and the 
schemers usually so manag"e as to g-et their favorite or secure 
a compromise on some new man whom they know they can 
use. 

If the new President and all elective officers we're nom- 
inated by law as I propose, no compromise on a new and un- 
known man could possibly be made by political managers. 

It may, and probably will be, claimed by the friends of 
the convention system, that the proposition securing- a nomi- 
nating election under the protection and security of law 
would not prevent the caucus nomination of candidate to be 
voted for at the first election. There is unquestionably some 
force in this suggestion. I am confident, however, that its 
adoption would practically abolish the convention system. 

The people may safely be entrusted with the management 
of this whole matter. All they ask is the protection of law, 
and they will soon dispose of party tricksters' and convention 
cliques. A nominating election, under the safeguards of 
law, is their security. If cliques and conventions attempt to 
dictate and control at the first or nominating election, their 
defeat will be inevitable at the second or regular election. 
It will thus be seen that the system has, in itself, the inherent 
power of protection against caucuses, conventions, and 
frauds. 

Mr. Lawrence, of Ohio. I would like to ask my col- 
league if he has not attended conventions and been nomi- 
nated by conventions, and if he does not support all nomina- 
tions made by the Republican party. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I answer the question of my col- 
league in the affirmative. I have attended conventions and 
expect to attend them as long as my party adheres to that 
S3^stem. I have been nominated by conventions, and have 
accepted those nominations, because I believed they were 
honestly made, and because I believed they fairly represented 
the wishes of the party. I would not accept a nomination 
secured by bargain and sale, or by fraud and corruption. I 
would not accept a nomination for any office if made by a 



— 475 — 

** balance of power" clique, with the understanding-, ex- 
pressed or implied, that in case of my election I should ap- 
point the leaders of such clique to ofl&ce. I have been 
nominated and elected five consecutive times by the Republi- 
can party of my district, and I never made, nor permitted to 
be made, such a promise to a sing-le man. I have always sup- 
ported the reg"ular nominations made by my party, and expect 
to do so until the system of nominating- conventions is abol- 
ished, and some new and better system adopted. 

THE INDEFENSIBLE MODE OF BISECTING OUR PRESIDENTS MAIN- 
TAINED IN THE INTERESTS OF SI.AVERY. 

But for the existence of slavery the present indefensible 
anti-democratic system of electing- the President by the ap- 
pointment of electors in such manner as the State leg-isla- 
tures may by law provide would long- since have been chang-ed, 
and a system more in accord with the democratic spirit of the 
ag-e adopted. 

That the present system of nominating- and electing- a 
President is in antag-onism with the principles of democratic 
g-overnment will not be seriously questioned. It has more 
than once defeated the popular choice for the nomination 
and election of President. Since I became a voter a ma- 
jority of our Presidents have been elected by a minority of 
the popular vote. Under the present system the incentive to 
fraud in ballot-box stuffing, illeg-al voting-, and^the importa- 
tion of voters into the larg-e and closely-contested States can- 
not be over-estimated. If an electoral ticket obtains by any 
means, fair or foul, a plurality of one or more votes, it con- 
trols the entire electoral vote of the State, which may decide 
the result of a presidential election, as in the case of the 
vote of New York in 1844. This electoral machinery has, 
and may ag-ain, defeat the popular will. 

In 1824 Maryland gave Adams a larg-er popular vote than 
either Jackson, Crawford, or Clay. But of the eleven elec- 
toral votes to which the State was then entitled, Jackson 
received seven, Adams three, and Crawford one. 

The electors in Maryland were elected at that time by 
districts, whereas they are now elected on a general ticket 



— 476 — 

for the State at large, as in all the States. Two districts is 
Maryland (the third and fourth), elected at that election 

TWO electors each, TO ACT AS SENATORIAL ELECTORS. 

In 1824 the electors of President and Vice-President were 
appointed in the several States as follows: 

In Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, Illinois, and Missouri, by the people in districts. 
Seven States. 

In New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi, 
Alabama, and Ohio, by the people on general ticket. Ten 
States. 

In Vermont, New York, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, 
Louisiana, and South Carolina, by the legislatures. Seven 
States. 

In a few years all the States except South Carolina 
adopted the general ticket system, so that the vote of the 
States should not be divided, thus securing to the large States 
the power to elect the President, and often by a mere plu- 
rality of the vote of the State. 

At the election of which I am speaking Jackson had 
ninety-nine electoral votes, Adams eighty-four, Crawford 
forty-one, and Clay thirty-seven. 

The Constitution requiring a majority of all the electoral 
votes cast to elect a President, and there being no choice of 
President by the electors, the election devolved on the House 
of Representatives. 

THE STATES WHICH REPRESENT A MINORITY OF THE PEOPLE IN 

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MAY ELECT THE 

PRESIDENT. 

Here, again, the machinery provided by the Constitution 
for the election of a President by the House of Representa- 
tives makes it possible for a minority of the people residing 
in small States to defeat the will of a majority of the voters 
in the nation. 

At the election in 1824 for electors of President Mr. 
Adams had a majority of the electoral vote in but seven 
States. When the election took place in the House of 



— 477 — 

Representatives, each State having" one vote, which is cast as 
a majority of the Representatives in the House from each 
State may determine, Mr. Adams had a majority in each, 
OF THE Representatives from thirteen States. The vote 
stood as follows: 

For Adams • 13 

For Jackson 7 

For Crawford 4 

Mr. Adams, having- a majority of all the votes cast, was 
declared duly elected President for the ensuing* term. 

It will be observed that Mr. Adams had not only fifteen 
electoral votes less than Jackson in the Electoral Colleg-e, but 
that he had a majority of the electors chosen in only seven 
States, whereas he obtained in the House of Representatives 
when elected President the vote of thirteen States, THREE OP 
THESE BEING States which gave Jackson a majority of 
THEIR EI.ECTORAI. VOTE, namely, Alabama, Louisiana, and 
Maryland; while three of the States which g-ave a majority 
for Clay at the election voted for Adams in the House, namely, 
Kentuck}^, Missouri, and Ohio. North Carolina gave her 
vote in the Electoral Colleg-e for Jackson, but in the House 
OP Representatives her vote was given to Crawford by 
A VOTE of ten to THREE, in utter disreg-ard of the popular 
vote of the people of the State as expressed at the ballot-box. 
' I present these facts to show how, under our present sys- 
tem, the voice of the people has been and may ag"ain be disre- 
garded. Nothing" could demonstrate more forcibly than this 
simple statement the necessity for a change in the manner of 
electing a President, if the will of the people as expressed at 
the ballot-box is to determine every four years who shall dis- 
charge the powers and duties of the office of President of the 
United States. 

I also desire to call attention to the fact that the ma- 
chinery of electors, as provided by our present Constitution, 
makes it possible for the will of the people to be defeated 
after the appointment of electors. For instance, if a candi- 
date for the Presidency should have in the Electoral College 
but two or three majority of the electoral vote, and four or 
five electors chosen by the majority in the different States 



— 473-- 

should, either corruptly, ig-norantly, oeg-lig-entl}', or for any 
cause, fail or refuse to attend at the place and on the day 
desig-nated by law for their meeting- in each State, to vote for 
the person desig-nated on the ticket for President, or should 
appear and vote for the opposing candidate, or vote blank, 
the people who voted for such electors would be either mis- 
represented or unrepresented in the Electoral College, and 
the candidate for whom a majority of electors was chosen to 
vote would be leg-ally defeated, although fairly elected. 
This is not unlikely to happen at any election, unless each 
State should provide by law for the conting-ency of absentees. 
They could not provide a remedy for the betrayai, of an 

ELECTOR. 

Of the presidential electors appointed for 1792, two in 
Maryland and one in South Carolina failed to appear at the 
time and place appointed for the meeting- of electors, and did 
not vote. For 1808 there was one in Kentucky. For 1812, 
one in Ohio. For 1816, three in Maryland and one in Dela- 
ware. For 1820, one in Pennsylvania, one in Alabama, and 
one in Tennessee. For 1824, one in Rhode Island. For 
1832, three in Maryland. For 1864, one in Nevada. The 
entire electoral vote for the State of Wisconsin was legally 
lost to Fremont in 1856 by the accident of a snow-storm, and 
would probably not have been counted if thereby the result 
of the election could have been changed. There may have 
been others which I have overlooked. 

In 1797 Adams had seventy-one votes and Jefferson 
sixty-nine, g-iving- Adams but two majority. If three of the 
electors who voted for Adams had failed to appear at the time 
and place designated by law to vote for President, or had 
refused to vote, or voted blank, Mr. Jefferson would have 
been elected. It will thus be seen that of the number of electors 
who have been appointed and three or four times failed to 
vote for President, in one instance in our history such neglect 
or refusal to act would have chang-ed the result of an election 
and defeated the leg-ally expressed will of the people in the 
selection of a President. 

But I need not detain the House long-er by presenting 
reasons ag-ainst a system so indefensible. 



— 479 — 

If the proposition which I have introduced should be 
adopted and become a part of the Constitution, it will abolish 
all the machinery of intermediate bodies, which now often 
control or defeat the will of the people, whether it be national 
conventions, electoral colleg^es, or the choice of a President 
by the House of Representatives. 

THE EI^ECFION OF A PRESIDENT BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESEN- 
TATIVES. 

We have had two elections in our history of a President 
by the House of Representatives, and I trust the Constitution 
may soon be so chang^ed that we shall never have another. 

Each State in such an election has one vote, and a ma- 
jority, as I have already said, of the Representatives in Con- 
gress from the States whose members are present and voting- 
determine for which of the three persons returned to the House 
the vote of the State shall be cast. At such an election the 
Representatives in Congress elected by a minority of a people 
may, and as a rule will, in such a contest elect a President. 

Counting all the States, and we now have thirty-seven; 
of these, under our present system ten may elect a President 
if united. I will name them: 

Votes. 

Illinois 16 

Indiana 13 • 

Kentucky 11 

Massachusetts 12 

Missouri 11 

New York 33 

Virginia 10 

Ohio 21 

Pennsylvania 26 

Tennessee 10 

Ten States 163 



— 480 — 



Votes. 

Alabama 8 

Arkansas 5 

California 5 

Connecticut 6 

Delav/are . 3 

Florida 3 . 

Oreg-on 3 

Georgia 9 

Kansas 3 

Louisiana 7 

Maine 7 

Maryland 7 

Minnesota 4 

Mississippi 7 

Nevada 3 

Nebraska 3 

New Hampshire 5 

New Jersey 7 

Rhode Island 4 

South Carolina 6 

Texas 6 

Vermont 5 

West Virginia 5 

North Carolina 9 

Wisconsin 8 

■ Iowa 8 

Michigan 8 

Twenty-seven States 154 

If at any time an election for President should devolve 
on the House of Representatives, a majority of the Represen- 
tatives in Congress from nineteen of the thirty-seven States, 
representing not more than one-fourth of the people and less 
than one-third of the electoral vote, could by uniting elect 
the President. 



— 4S1 — 

I^et me name the States : 

Votes. 

Delaware 1 

Florida 1 

Kansas 1 

Nebraska 1 

Nevada 1 

Oreg"on 1 

Minnesota 2 ~ 

Rhode Island 2 

Arkansas 3 

California 3 

New Hampshire . . . . ! 3 

Vermont 3 

West Virginia 3 

Connecticut 4 

South Carolina 4 

Texas 4 

Maryland 5 " . 

New Jersey 5 

- Mississippi 5 

Nineteen States 52 

Thirty-eig-ht of the fifty-two members from the States 
just named can control the vote of said States and elect the 
President. 

It will be observed that in the table from which I have 
just read, we have six States, with but one vote each, while 
seven others have but nineteen votes, and the six remaining" 
but twenty-seven. In all fifty-two votes. These nineteen 
States have two Senators each, making in all thirty-eight 
Senators, which, added to the fifty-two Representatives in 
the House, makes ninety vo'tes, and that number of electoral 
votes. 

In a few years, at most, six new States will be organized 
out of our present Territories and admitted into the Union. 
When admitted, they will be entitled under our present sys- 



— 482 — 

tern to cast three electoral votes each for President, making 
eighteen votes, and in case the election of a President de- 
volves on the House of Representatives, they will each have 
all the political power of New York or Ohio, with the cer- 
tainty that they cannot lose their vote in the House by an 
equal division of their Representatives as the larger States 
raay ; thus increasing the inequality of political power which 
now exists in the House when the election of a President de- 
volves upon it, to an extent which I fear the statesmen of the 
country do not fully recognize. Admit six of the Territories, 
and the number of States would be increased to forty-three, 
and the electoral vote, if the States already named retain 
their present number of votes, would be three hundred and 
thirty-five. 

Now, take Georgia, with her nine electoral votes, and 
add to the ten States in the first table, and eleven States can 
give one hundred and seventy-two electoral votes, while the 
remaining thirty-two States can give but one hundred and 
sixty-three electoral votes. Thus eleven States out of forty- 
three,' if united, may, by a plurality of their voters, elect a 
President ; yet, if they are so divided that a majority of all 
the electors are not chosen for one of the candidates, there is 
no election, and the election devolves on the House of Repre- 
sentatives, when twenty-two States, representing only eighty- 
nine electoral votes out of three hundred and thirty-five, or a 
fraction more than one-fourth, and not one-fourth of the pop- 
ular vote, may elect a President. 

Add the six new States, each with their three electoral 
votes, to the six States now in the Union with but three votes 
each, and we will have twelve States with one vote each in 
the House, and but thirty-six electoral votes. When that 
time comes — which will probably be within ten 3'ears at 
most — we shall have, as I have shown, forty-three States, of 
which twenty-two will be a majority, and this majority of 
States can be controlled by thirty-five members ; eight votes 
less than there are States in the Union. Thus it will be seen 

that THIRTY-FIVE MEN IN THE HoUSE, WHEN COMPOSED OP TWO 
HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE MEMBERS, WII.I, HAVE THE POWER 

TO EiyECT A President should the ei^ection devoi^ve on 
THE House of Representatives. 



— 483 — 

I need not add a word in condemnation of a system so ut- 
terly repug-nant to all rig-ht-thinking- men. The fact that so 
small a body of men will have it in their power to -elect a 
President, if the election can be carried into the House of 
Representatives, will make it for the interest of desperate 
political adventurers and place-hunters to combine and force 
the election into the House. I would not have you foro-et 
that the Representatives who are to determine the choice of a 
President when the election devolves on the House of Repre- 
sentatives are members of the Cong-ress which expires on the 
day the new President is to be inaug-urated ; that the term 
of all members not re-elected will cease on the 4th of March 
after the election of the President, and that such members 
will then be prepared to accept appointments under the new 
Administration. 

With the States all restored, as we soon hope to see 
them, there will be thirty-seven, as I have before said, and 
the number of members in the House will be two hundred 
and forty -three, one hundred and twenty-two of whom are a 
majority. Yet thirty-eight members representing nine- 
teen States by voting together can constitutionally 
elect the president when the election devolves on the 
House. 

These calculations are based upon the hypothesis that 
every State will have a vote in such an election ; whereas it 
will sometimes happen that the larg-er States will lose their 
vote by an equal division in their deleg-ation. This, of course, 
cannot happen where a State has but one Representative. 

When there is but one majority in a deleg-ation, any 
member from such a State may change the result, or he may 
refuse to vote, and thus deliberately, and for a purpose, cause 
the vote of his State to be equally divided and lost, thus in- 
creasing- the power of the few in the House who vote as a 
unit. 

The proposition which I make bring-s the Senate and 
House of Representatives tog-ether in joint convention within 
sixty days after the death, resignation or removal of the 
President, and secures to each Senator and Representative 
one vote. 



— 484 — 

An election of a President by a joint vote of the two 
Houses of Congress can only happen under the plan which I 
have submitted, on the death, resignation or removal of the 
incumbent ; because the peoole will of necessity elect a Pres- 
ident at the second election without the intervention of any 
body of men, thus taking away from the House of Represen- 
tatives this dangerous oower, now lodged by the Constitution 
in the hands of less than one-third of its members, and secur- 
ing it to the people. 

Experience teaches that small bodies of men may be cor- 
rupted, the great body of the people never. Where there are 
more than two presidential candidates, those representing 
political parties known to be in the minority in any State, 
while acting separately, may unite and adopt a joint electoral 
ticket, composed of men representing their respective party 
organizations, and thus obtain a plurality of the popular vote 
in enough doubtful States to defeat an election by electors. 
The election of the President would then devolve on the 
House of Representatives, and one of the candidates of the 
minority could there be elected, as I have shown, by less than 
one-third of the Representatives in Congress, with a constit- 
uency numbering less than one-fourth of the popular vote. 

After an election, in which there was no choice by the 
people, if they were permitted to vote the second time, they 
would never permit an election of President to go to the 
House of Representatives, as provided under our present Con- 
stitution. This is one of the important privileges which I 
propose to secure directly to the people, so that in a country 
extensive as ours the people may have an opportunity of vot- 
ing for a second choice if they fail to secure their first choice. 

In any light in which I am able to view the present mode 
of electing a President, whether by the appointment of elec- 
tors or selecting him by the House of Representatives, it 
seems to me to be violative of the democratic principle, and 
dangerous to the peace and stability of the Government. 

In conversing recently with one of the most distinguished 
men of the nation on this subject he said that should an elec- 
tion such as I have described occur, and the choice devolve 
on the House of Representatives, it would not dare to select 
for President the candidate having the smallest vote ; that if 



~ 485 — 

they did so it would end in revolution, and that until some 
great ag-itation resulting- from such an outrag-e came upon 
the country the people could not be aroused to the necessity of 
providing- against its probability. 

However that may be, I feel it to be my duty to present 
this subject to the consideration of this House and the coun- 
try, with the notice that while I remain a member of this 
body I do not intend to rest until a judgment is rendered up- 
on it by Congress and the people. 

Believing in the capacity of the people for self-govern- 
ment, I ask that all who are duly qualified shall vote directly 
for President; that they be secured and protected in that 
right, and be freed from the dictation and control of all inter- 
mediate and irresponsible bodies of men. Any substitute 
for a popular vote makes it possible for intermediate bodies, 
who are commissioned to act for the people, to betray them 
or defeat their choice. 

The s^'stem which now prevails of nominating- and elect- 
ing- our Presidents tends directly to corruption and fraud, 
and to placing the g-overnment in the hands of a minority of 
experienced and unscrupulous political intriguers. 

Minorities cannot long administer a government such as 
ours in this country by fraud and intrigue without inaug-u- 
rating- violence and bloodshed. The administration by the 
slave oligarchy of this government for so many years by 
fraud, intrigue, and force is a case in point. 

The history of all republics which have risen and fallen 
teaches us that liberty will perish if the people permit the 
establishment of any substitute for popular elections. 

It is the province of true statesmanship to supply a 
remedy for the dangerous, unjust, and anti-democratic pro- 
vision of the Constitution which provides for the election of 
our national Executive. 

I have not provided for special elections by the people in 
case of the death, disability, or removal of the President, 
because I think the presidential term should commence and 
end as now. 

The business interests of the country cannot afford to g-o 
through a presidential campaign oftener than once in four 
years. If an election to fill a vacancy devolves on the Con- 



— 486 — 

gress, each Senator and Representative has one vote, which 
is as equitable an apportionment according" to population as 
can well be made, and the choice of an acting* President to 
fill any vacancy which may happen will probably give as 
much satisfaction in the mode proposed as any which could 
be devised. 

Olf THE EXECUTIVE AND APPOINTING POWER. 

Mr. Chairman, in defining* the executive power the 
framers of the Constitution declared that it should be in 
a President, intending" thereby to say that the executive 
power of the nation should be vested in one person, to be 
called a President, and that he should exercise the powers 
and duties conferred in strict accordance with the g-rants and 
limitations of the Constitution. Gradually but steadily the 
executive power has streng"thened -itself and encroached upon 
the legislative department, causing the conflict through 
which we have just passed. 

The power of appointment committed to the President 
under our Constitution has for years made him little else than 
a king for the time being, except in name. 

Insidious usurpations, long submitted to, but never con- 
templated by the Constitution, have so grown into custom 
that to-day, without the tenure-of-office act, the vast power 
in the hands of an ambitious, aspiring, popular President 
is dangerous to the peace and stability of the Union. 

When it is remembered that there are nearl}^ forty 
thousand office-holders, whose salaries amount to millions, 
and whose appointments, directly or indirectly, depend on the 
word of the President, v/e will be able to comprehend some- 
thing of the overshadowing power of the Executive. 

We have all seen how dangerous a President may become 
who is without character and without ability, even when 
manacled with the civil tenure-of-office law. 

Let the intelligent student read over our political history 
for the past forty or fifty years, and he will be surprised to 
find how large has been the number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives who during that time have openl}' or covertly be- 
trayed their constituents, and become the mere dependents of 



— 487 — 

the Executives who during- their official term filled the ptesi- 
dential office. 

I will not now speak of the baseness which has been so 
open and unblushing- within the memory of us all. For the 
sake of place and power a large number of public men, in the 
past half century, have abandoned cherished convictions, 
betrayed the people, and become the mere creatures of our 
acting- Executives, so that to-day our political hig-hway pre- 
sents an almost unbroken line of unburied political skeletons, 
offensive to the sig-ht and poisonous to our political atmos- 
phere. Sir, let any man read our political history for the 
past forty or fifty years, and he will find that an executive 
nod to a representative of the same political party has been 
more potent, as a rule, than the will of his constituents. I 
admit that this abasement was far more g-eneral than it is to- 
day, during- the period in which the slave-masters of the 
South dominated over the nation and northern doug-hfaces 
did their bidding- with alacrity and without question. 

Experience has demonstrated the fact that executive 
blandishment and patronag-e have been used with marked suc- 
cess within the memory of us all. Senators and Representa- 
tives of all parties have alike yielded to its seductive power. 

The men usually selected to do the bidding of an Execu- 
tive in defiance of the wishes of their constituents are men 
elected from congressional districts which never re-elect their 
representatives, or re-elect them but once. " Such districts, as 
a rule, send men to Congress who are without State or 
national reputations, and as a consequence a large number of 
such men are always ready in the name of party to do the 
bidding of an unscrupulous Executive, and accept for their 
services, when repudiated by their constituents, a petty ap- 
pointment, which men of character, ability, and a political 
future would spurn. So long as Representatives to Congress 
are elected for but one, or at most for but two terms, and be- 
cause they reside in this or that county of a district rather 
than because of their fitness, ability, or fidelity to principles, 
and so long as the President is clothed with such vast ap- 
pointing power, and he is permitted to demand, as now, of 
his appointees, an indorsement of "his policy," including his 
policy for a re-election, as a condition to their appointment or 



— 488 — 

continuance in office, so long* will constituencies be betrayed 
and political adventurers be successful. 

Practically, sir, the demand made, disg-uise it as we may, 
of the great body of men who are nominated to important 
positions by every Executive ambitious for a re-election is, 
will you pledge yourself to support "my policy?" 

THE ROTATION SYSTEM — ITS STUPIDITY. 

In a number of congressional districts personally known 
to me, the rotation system prevails so rigidly that they never 
re-elect a gentleman to Congress, no matter how able or 
faithful. Political aspirants with their personal friends 
come tog"ether in what they are pleased to call conventions, 
and neg-otiations are deliberately entered into and a pro- 
gramme agreed upon, which must remain undisturbed for 
years and with which no national exigency or local want of 
the people must interfere. In these convention conclaves the 
people are without a voice or vote, and in the name of party 
they are bound hand and foot. It is generally agreed that 
the nominee for the first term, in such district, after a new 
apportionment, shall be given to the county having- the most 
political influence, if their local politicians can agree, and 
thereafter, if there is more than one county in the district, 
that the candidate shall rotate until each county shall in turn 
be served with a candidate. Experience has demonstrated 
how indifferent a majority of such Representatives are to the 
wishes and wants of their constituents. 

Of the practical inefficiency of such Representatives I 
need not speak. It is not possible for them to be otherwise 
than inefficient. Let the constituencies who have so re- 
peatedly suffered under this stupid system, and been hu- 
miliated, disgraced, and betrayed, apologize to the nation for 
sending- such men into her council halls, by speedily chang- 
ing a system which is the nursery of the most insufferable 
demagogues. 

I have known men who ought never to have been in- 
trusted with official position anywhere, and who probably 
never would have been but for this system, change their resi- 
dence from one county to another for the express purpose of 



— 489 — 

securing* a nomination to Cong^ress, and succeed. Their 
anxiety to serve the dear people would become so g-reat that 
they would anticipate by removing* into a county entitled 
under their agreement to the candidate at the next election. 

Mr. Chairman, what is a cong"ressional district? Legally 
and for the time being" it is one political community, as much 
as any county. It is org-anized by law as an entirety for the 
election of a Representative to Cong"ress. The system which 
provides for the rotation of the member from one county to 
another every two or four years was not adopted in the in- 
terest of the people, but in the interest of politicians. 

I know many constituencies will pardon me if I suggest 
to such as are pledged by their party leaders to the policy of 
electing- a Representative from each county in a district, or to 
electing a new and inexperienced man every two or four years, 
that they modify it so far, at least, as to select a gentleman to 
represent them because of his character, ability and well- 
known fidelity to principles which they regard as fundamen- 
tal, and that they require the candidate, as a condition to his 
renoraination, that he "board round," when at home, in each 
county, after the custom of our western schoolmasters in 
early times, so that each county in such district shall have 
secured to it, at least once ever}^ year or two, a Representa- 
tive in Congress who shall thus become a resident of every 
county. This would be a vast improvement on the plan so 
long- adhered to in the North, which plan enabled the politi- 
cal adventurers who have so often held the balance of power 
in all our g-reat national strug*gles to^crawl into the national 
Cong-ress. As a class these were the men who, at the bid- 
ding* of the slave barons, betraj-ed the nation into the 
adoption of the Missouri compromise of 1820; and again, 
when it was repealed, whose votes enacted the so-called com- 
promises of 1850 into law, including* the infamous fugitive- 
slave act, the Kansas-Nebraska acts of 1854, and the Lecomp- 
ton constitution of 1856; in short, the men who betrayed the 
nation in every g*reat strug*gle between liberty and slavery 
for the past half century. 

A largfe proportion of the men who thus betrayed their 
constituents, after being* repudiated at home, received petty 
appointments from the President. This custom of compen- 



— 490 — 

sating- the nation's betrayers, by their appointment to office, 
has been sanctioned and sanctified by long* and successful 
usage, so that an act of successful treachery against a confid- 
ino- constituency opens the door for promotion at the presi- 
dential mansion. All can understand that so corrupt and 
corrupting a custom could only be maintained by having- 
reckless demagogues and small men without character rotated 
in and out of Congress as fast as possible. The South favor- 
ed the " rotation principle " for the North, but were too wise 
and wily to adopt it themselves. The result was that with 
the immense patronage of the Government in the hands of a 
President controlled by the slave barons, liberty was alwaj^s 
betrayed. 

Had I time I might here present some interesting and 
instructive facts, showing- how few men the North main- 
tained in Congress beyond a single term, or beyond four 
years in the House for twenty-five years before the war, and 
how the South continued her Representatives until her men 
of ordinarj^ abilities became so familiar with the public busi- 
ness of the country that they came to be leaders in Congress, 
and bv a careful organization of the committees, controlled 
the legislation of the nation. 

When I came into the Thirty-sixth Congress the two 

Senators from Florida — a political community without the 

voting population of the congressional district which I have 

the honor to represent — were each at the head of an important 

committee ; one at the head of the Navy, the other of the 

Post-office ; and this was a fair sample of the manner in which 

committees were organized both in the Senate and House for 

many years before the war. The whole State of Florida did 

not have as many letters go through its post-offices in a year 

as go through one city in my district in a single week ; nor 

did its entire commercial interests reach in one year an 

amount equal in value to the commerce of Toledo every ten 

days; and yet these two men shaped, and in a great measure 

controlled, the postal and naval legislation of the country. 

Thus the representatives of a class interest, numbering- but a 

fewHhundred thousand slave-owners, the most offensive and 

infamous oligarchy in history, by the political machinery of 

conventions took possession of the Government in the name 



— 491 — 

of Democracy and filled its most honorable and responsible 
offices from their own number. I am g-lad to be able to state 
that thousands of g-ood men all over the country are beo-in- 
ning- to see and feel the necessity of a radical chang-e in this 
matter. Of the many letters which I have received, and seen 
when received by others, none is more to the point than one 
shown me a few moments ago by my colleag-ue [Mr. Law- 
rence] , an extract from which I will read. He says to my 
colleag-ue: 

" Go on. You have borne the heat and burden of the 
day. ' We do not want to trade horses while crossing- the 
stream.' 

"We like your bold, manly course, and have learned to 
appreciate it the more since we see so many g-oing- over to the 
enemy. We want to make the example that it pays better to 
remain with our colors than to sell out and desert." 



DANGEROUS POWER OP THE PRESIDENT IN CONTROLLING CON- 
GRESSIONAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS. 

At least one-third of all the cong-ressional districts in the 
nation may safely be classed, in ordinary party times, as 
politically doubtful. Such districts are org-anized by the 
dominant part}^ in every State legislature for the purpose of 
securing-, if possible, to their party, every Representative in 
Congress from the State. 

A majority of all doubtful or close districts have what is 
known as a balance-of-power faction in each party, composed 
for the most part of dissatisfied and disappointed men, with 
political adventurers for leaders, who are always plotting for 
office, especially for congressional nominations, on the prin- 
ciple of "rotation," and "that this or that man has had it 
long enough; and that it is their turn now." If they cannot 
secure a nomination from one party they do not hesitate to 
ask a nomination from the opposite party. If they cannot 
secure a nomination from either party they do not hesitate 

TO "bolt" OR TO ENTER INTO ANY COALITION WHICH PROM- 
ISES TO SECURE DEFEAT TO ANY MAN WHO STANDS IN THEIR 

"WAY. In short, they will do any act which they believe will 
compel one or both parties to a compromise in the selection 



— 492 — 

of its candidates, under the threat of defeat if compliance 
with their demand is refused. These demands are usually 
the petty offices at the disposal of the Representative from 
the district, and a barg-ain as to which faction and county in 
the district shall have the cong-ressional candidate for the 
next term. 

In this way, with the aid of the plausible cry, ' * rotation 
in office," political apostates and adventurers and men with- 
out character, ability, or principle have so often in our his- 
tory crept into the council halls of the nation and misrepre- 
sented and betrayed the people. 

In such districts as I have described, the question too 
often asked by the best men of both parties is not who is the 
most reliable and competent man to represent us in Congress^ 
but "who can the most certainly defeat the candidate of the 
opposition." To accomplish this, men who never were 
Republicans have been selected as candidates and voted for 
by Republicans since the organization of that great party» 
and sometimes apostates, or men but recently members of the 
opposite party, have been nominated by Republican conven- 
tions, as in the case of Andrew Johnson, not because they 
ever advocated or honestly entertained Republican ideas, but 
because political tricksters and schemers promised their sup- 
port, and induced the party to believe that success could thus 
be secured at the election by the nomination of such candi- 
dates, and that defeat would be inevitable without it. As a 
rule the men thus nominated are but political adventurers, 
thrown to the surface like drift-wood in a flood, and, though 
they soon sink with their own rottenness, while they are in 
power they corrupt and debase the nation. 

The insane desire for mere party success rather than the 
triumph of ideas in the election of honorable and responsible 
men of unquestioned fidelity has invited and encouraged, in 
almost every congressional district in which the party ma- 
jority is uncertain, a score or more of "bolters," apostates, 
and political trimmers to thrust themselves upon both the 
great political parties as candidates for nomination to Con- 
gress. As a class these are the men who in the past thirty or 
forty years have so often betrayed constituencies at the bid- 



— 493 — 

ding- of an unscrupulous, ambitious Executive, and received 
their reward in some petty office. 

When a State or congressional district accepts as its 
representative a drunkard or a man without moral character 
and destitute of political principles, it treads the path which 
leads the nation on the hig-hway to ruin. Far better that a 
party be defeated than that it should elect a man morally 
hase enough to betray it. Far better defeat with men of 
character representing its ideas than success with men who 
represent neither moral nor political convictions. That a 
system so vicious and corrupting- should so long have continued 
in any State or locality, even under the despotism of party 
conventions, is one of the inexplicable mysteries of Ameri- 
can politics. 

To the fact that the rotation system was in a measure 
abolished by the Republican party, and faithful and expe- 
rienced men retained in Congress from a large number of 
Northern States during- the war and since, does the nation 
owe in g-reat part the successful legislation which carried it 
triumphantly through the war and prepared it the better to 
resist the usurpations and defeat in part the conspiracies of 
the acting- President and his co-conspirators and allies. 
With new, untried, and inexperienced men every two or four 
years such a result would have been impossible. 

So long- as the system which I have described of nomi- 
nating- and electing- Representatives to Cong-ress is adhered to 
— and I concede that the district system is infinitely better 
than the g-eneral ticket system plan which at one time pre- 
vailed in a number of States, where the entire congressional 
deleg-ation from a State was elected on one ticket — I say 
that so long- as the system now prevailing- of selecting Rep- 
resentatives to Congress continues and the vast patronage of 
the Government remains, as now, in the hands of the Execu- 
tive, so long- will a new set of unknown and unfaithful men 
be found in Cong-ress to do the bidding- of any Executive of 
their party who is unscrupulous enough to employ the Gov- 
ernment patronage for that purpose. 

Had Mr. Lincoln desired the defeat of the radical Repub- 
lican candidates for Congress in 1862 he could have secured 
it in a niajorit}- of congressional districts in the nation. Had 



— 494 — 

Mr. Johnson been a man of character and ability he -could in 
1866, by ordinary management and a judicious use of the 
public patronag-e, have secured in close districts the defeat of 
all Republicans opposed to " his policy." Through his thir- 
ty or forty thousand appointees and his newspaper organs 
professing Republicanism, and such Republicans as he then 
had in Congress co-operating with him, he could have said, 
in a way not to be misunderstood, that such a result would 
be agreeable to him, and that a large number of leading Re- 
publicans, in Congress and out of it, concurred with him in 
believing that the defeat of all radicals was necessary to the 
complete success of the Republican party. And there were 
a number of professed Republicans then in Congress stupid 
enough or base enough to listen to such schemes and to say that 
the President's purposes were "to fight out his differences 
with the radicals in the Republican party;" that " in no event 
would he go over to the enemy." Fortunately for the nation, 
Mr. Johnson's open apostasy and base betrayal of the great 
party which elected him ; his offensive and disgusting exhi- 
bition of himself throughout the country, and the want of 
character in his so-called Republican adherents was all that 
saved us from division and defeat at the elections in 1866 and 
since. 

Mr. Chairman, there are but few congressional districts 
in which any President of character and good standing with 
his party may not, by a free use of the vast patronage in his 
hands, defeat, either for nomination or election, any candi- 
date of his party for Congress who is obnoxious to him. 
That such vast power ought not to be lodged in the hands of 
any President will be conceded by all true friends of demo- 
cratic government. 

As the nation grows in population and wealth this vast, 
uncontrolled and uncontrollable power increases and becomes 
more dangerous. Its corrupting influence reaches out and 
subsidizes men in every county of the republic. 

Sir, on behalf of all who cherish the democratic idea, 
I plead for the submission, by this Congress, of such an 
amendment to the Constitution as shall, when adopted, give 
security against the corruption and the danger which is in- 



— 495 — 

separable from the selfish use of the vast appointing- power 
in the hands of any President desirous of a re-election. 

Before the rebellion such Representatives in Congress as 
I have described were always sufficiently numerous to pre- 
vent, by uniting- with the opposition, the passage of any 
important measure obnoxious to the President if he exercised 
the veto power. Hence we see that a President of character 
and ability may, with the vast patronag-e at his disposal and 
a liberal use of the veto, defy, in ordinary party times, both 
Congress and the nation for his entire term. 

THE REMEDY OF IMPEACHMENT BUT "A SCARECROW." 

As to the impeachment and removal of a President, that 
■will probably never be attempted ag-ain. The late melan- 
choly failure or refusal of the so-called hig-h court to convict 
and depose an admitted usurper and violator of law, who 
was without a party and powerless to resist any order of that 
tribunal, has practically settled that question for all time to 
come. The nation must seek some other protection from the 
usurpations of its Executives than the hig-h court of impeach- 
ment. Jefferson said that the clause of the Constitution 
providing- for the impeachment of the President would prove 
but "a scarecrow." To-day we all know that it is a dead 
letter. 

"We have all witnessed the resort which was had by artful 
men to technical subterfug-es and leg-al sophistries in order to 
release the President from all accountability to the nation. 

If Jefferson at the time of the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion could foresee and declare that "impeachment would prove 
but a SCARECROW," we who have witnessed its practical work- 
ing's may, I think, without incurring- the charg-e of rashness, 
proclaim it " a national farce." 

In the light of what has so recently transpired I am more 
profoundly impressed than ever with the great wisdom and 
prophetic foresight of the real statesmen of the Revolution. 
They comprehended the danger of executive power and the 
impossibility of successful impeachment before the Senate. 

In the Virginia convention Mr. George Mason, in speak- 
ing of this defect in the national Constitution, said: 



— 496 — 

"It has been wittily observed that the Constitution has 
married the President and Senate — has made them man and 
wife. I believe the consequence that g-enerally results from 
marriage will happen here. They will be continually sup- 
porting- and aiding each other. They will always consider 
their interests as united. Wb know thb advantage the; few 

HAVE OVER THE MANY. ThEY CAN WITH FACILITY ACT IN CON- 
CERT AND ON A UNIFORM SYSTEM; THEY MAY JOIN SCHEMES AND 
PLOT AGAINST THE PEOPLE WITHOUT ANY CHANCE OF DETEC- 
TION. The Senate and President will form a combina- 
tion THAT CANNOT BE PREVENTED BY THE REPRESENTATIVES. 
The executive and legislative powers thus connected will 
destroy all balances. This would have been prevented by a 
constitutional council to aid the President in the discharge of 
hisof&ce; vesting the Senate at the same time with the power 
of impeaching them. Then we should have real responsi- 
bility. In ITS PRESENT form THE GUILTY TRY THEMSELVES. 

The President is tried by his counselors. He is not 
removed from office during his trial. When he is arraigned 
for treason he has the command of the Army and Navy, and 
may surround the Senate with thirty thousand troops." . . . 
"He may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by 
himself. It may happen at some future day that he will 
establish a monarchy or destroy the republic. If he 

HAS the power op GRANTING PARDONS BEFORE INDICTMENT 
AND CONVICTION, MAY HE NOT STOP INQUIRY AND PREVENT 
DETECTION?" 

Mr. Madison answered Mr. Mason as follows: 

"There is one security in this case to which gentlemen 
may not have adverted. If the President be connected in 
any suspicious manner with any persons, and there be grounds 
to believe he will shelter himself, the House of Representa- 
tives can impeach him. They can remove him if found 

guilty; THEY CAN SUSPEND HIM WHEN SUSPECTED, AND THE 
POWER WILL DEVOLVE UPON THE ViCE-PrESIDENT. ShOULD 
HE BE vSUSPECTED ALSO, HE MAY LIKEWISE BE SUSPENDED TILL 
HE BE IMPEACHED AND REMOVED, AND THE LEGISLATURE MAY 
MAKE A TEMPORARY APPOINTMENT. ThIS IS A GREAT SE- 
CURITY." 

I do not forget that Mr. Madison, after becoming Presi- 
dent, yielded to influences which have controlled other men 
after obtaining power, and that he denied the authority of 
Congress to suspend the President during trial. I prefer the 
opinion of Madison when speaking in the Virginia conven- 
tion, to the opinion of Madison after he became President. 



— 497 — 

Mr. Monroe, who afterwards became President, declared that 
the power conceded to the Executive under the Constitution 
was dangerous to the liberties of the people. He said: 

"The President ought to act under the strongest im- 
pulses of reward and punishment, which are the strongest 
incentives to human action. There are two ways of secur- 
ing this point. Hn ought to depend on the people of 
America for his appointment and continuance in office. 
He ought to be tried by dispassionate judges. His respon- 
sibility ought, further, to be direct and immediate." 
. . . "To whom is he responsible? To the Senate, his 
OWN council. If he makes a treaty bartering the interests 
of his country, by whom is he to be tried? By the very per- 
sons who advised him to perpetrate the act. Is this any 
security?" 

Mr. Grayson, another distinguished member of the same 
convention, during the debates from which I have just 
quoted, said: 

"Consider the means of importance he (the President) 
will have by appointing officers. If he has a good under- 
standing with the Senate they will join to prevent a dis- 
covery op his misdeeds." . . . "As this Government is 
organized it would be dangerous to trust the President 
with such powers. How will you punish him if he abuse his 
power? Will you call him before the Senate? They are his 
counselors and partners in crimes. Where are your checks? 
We ought to be extremely cautious in this country. If ever 
THE Government be changed it will probably be into a 
despotism." 

Has not our recent experience justified all that was said 
by the considerate statesmen from whom I have quoted, of 
the danger of executive power and the impossibility of redress 
by impeachment and trial before the Senate. These brief 
speeches are so conclusive, when coupled with events which 
have just transpired, that I do not hesitate to declare the 
remedy by impeachment for executive crimes and misde- 
meanors "a national farce." Prom all that has transpired 
am I not justified in so proclaiming? What are the facts? 

The great criminal of the nineteenth century was brought 
to the bar of the nation's appointed court, and the issue 
proved too much for the weakness of human nature. The 
32 



— 498 — 

executive power asserts its defiance of laws and Constitution 
and its supremacy over both, and the people are powerless in 
the presence of the usurper. Weeks ag-o he is said to have 
communicated the forthcoming- decision of the Senate and 
named the very members thereof who were to vote for his 
acquittal. The people with one accord had pronounced him 
g-uilty, but the hig-h court enter up a verdict of acquittal. 
All this is done under the sanction of a judicial oath, and 
the people are told that they must not g-o behind that to 
question the judicial verdict of Senators. In answer to this 
I need only reply that the vilest enormities ever inflicted on 
mankind of which we have any record in history were com- 
mitted under the sanction and solemnities of a judicial oath. 

If public rumor be true, the verdict acquitting- the Presi- 
dent was not rendered because of law or evidence, but was 
the result of a secret, deliberate and carefully org-anized com- 
bination, broug-ht about by personal hatreds, individual am- 
bitions, presidential electioneering- schemes in the interest of 
office-holding- and ofSce-seeking- cliques; and alas! all fear by 
a more monstrous prostitution of the great trust committed 
to each individual member of the court which shall be name- 
less here. 

If such combinations, with the means which are said to 
have been employed, may successfully prevent the removal of 
a dangerous and g-uilty : resident, by the great tribunal pro- 
vided by our fathers for the protection and security of the 
republic, we may look for th- early inauguration of a policy 
which will speedily bring into entire subordination the legis- 
lative to the executive department of the Government. 

From the judgment of this high tribunal, made under 
the solemn obligations of a judicial oath, we intend to ap- 
peal to a higher and safer tribunal, the great tribunal of the 
people, who, though not acting under the sanction of official 
or judicial oaths, will render a verdict quite as honestly and 
quite as free from partisan hatred — a verdict which shall, at 
all events, be free from the taint of dishonor and corruption. 

To me the only hope of the nation is in that power 
which can make Presidents and Senators. To that incorrup- 
tible power we shall appeal from a verdict which is utterly 
indefensible and a mockery of justice. 



— 499 — 

To the people we also intend to appeal for an amend- 
ment to their org-anic law which shall abolish the Vice-Pres- 
idential office and provide ag-ainst the re-election of any man 
to the Presidency, as a means of obtaining- additional security 
ag-ainst the encroachments of the executive power. Pass 
this amendment ; secure a fairrepresentation to the minority; 
provide for a modification of the veto power by authorizing: 
the President to return a bill with his objections, but provide 
that on a reconsideration a majority of the members elected 
and qualified in the Senate and in the House of Representa- 
tives shall be required to enact the bill into law over the veto, 
instead of two-thirds of a quorum, as now, and the people 
will have all the security necessary to protect them ag-ainst 
hasty, partisan or unconstitutional legislation. Add to this 
a civil tenure-of-office act which shall take away from Senators 
and Representatives the authority which custom has secured 
to those representing- the administration party of desig-nating* 
persons for appointment and lodg-e it with a board of exam- 
iners, as free to act as the examining* board at "West Point, 
which board shall examine all applicants for appointment 
and for promotion, and before whom all shall have a fair 
hearing-, with a copy of the charg-es and specifications prior 
to their dismissal from office ; and we will do something" 
toward remed^ang- the present unjust and indefensible system 
of appointing- persons to office in our civil service. Provide 
with this a modification of the pardoning- power, which 
ought never to be lodged in the hands of any one man, and a 
provision authorizing the House of Representatives, by a 
two-thirds vote, to demand a change of any member of the 
Cabinet, and the people will retain in their hands such con- 
trol of their public servants as will be a guarantee of their 
fidelity and faithfulness. In this way the dangerous assump- 
tions of the Executive can.be successfully provided against 
and the rights and liberties of the people preserved. If some 
such provision as I have suggested is not adopted, then the 
declaration made by Franklin in the convention which 
framed the Constitution, that — 

*' The executive power will be always increasing here as. 
elsewhere till it ends in monarchy," 



— 500 — 

will, I fear, some day not far distant become a prophecy ful- 
filled. 



PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES NOT SELECTED BY CONVENTIONS BE- 
CAUSE OF FITNESS, CHARACTER, OR ABILITY. 

Mr. Chairman, the considerations which so often prevail 
in the nomination of Representatives to Cong-ress in closely- 
contested districts have too often prevailed with both parties 
in the nomination of their presidential candidates. The 
question asked by the leaders and active men in each party is 
not, as it should be, " Who of all the public men of my party 
is the best qualified, because of executive ability, character, 
culture and fidelity to principles, to discharg^e the duties of 
the presidential of6.ce with credit to himself and honor to the 
nation both at home and abroad; who has the most honor- 
able record, the most blameless public and private life with 
which to adorn and dignify the most exalted and honorable 
political office on earth?" But the question asked is, ' ' Where 
can we find a candidate without a public record, a man of 
whom our opponents can say nothing-, and of whom we may 
say what we please, to satisfy the interests or prejudices of 
any locality without fear of contradiction; a man who will the 
most certainly secure the electoral vote of this or that State 
which political prophets declare to be doubtful; States which 
are conceded to hold the balance of power in the presidential 
contest?" These are the questions asked. 

It could not well be otherwise under such a political sys- 
tem than that untried, unfaithful and incompetent men, com- 
paratively unknown to the great body of people, should so 
often have reached the presidential office. I need not cite 
more than one instance in our history to show how success- 
fully the honest voters of a great State have been defrauded 
and betrayed by the nomination of such men as I have de- 
scribed. 

In 1844 the people of Pennsylvania were induced to vote 
for James K. Polk and against Henry Clay, because the Dem- 
ocratic leaders in that State adopted and carried upon all 
their banners the rallying watchwords, "Polk, Dallas and 
the tariif of '42," watchwords which would have defeated 



— 501-^ 

them if placed upon their banners in the South or "West. 
After the election the people whose votes had thus been ob- 
tained were openly and unblushing-ly betraj'-ed by the repeal 
of the tariff of 1842, which act received the casting* vote of 
Vice-President Dallas, of Pennsylvania, and secured the ap- 
proval of President Polk. 

The people who have been so often betrayed beg-in to 
recog"nize the fact that treachery in politics has become a 
trade, and that so long- as the convention and electoral sys- 
tem prevails they are powerless in the hands of its manag-ers. 

They know that, as a rule, so long- as the people submit 
to this system, no man will be nominated by either party for 
the Presidency who is their first choice, or for whom a major- 
ity of the electors of either party would voluntarily vote for 
nomination at the ballot-box, if they could do so under the 
protection of law. 

Adopt the system which I propose and no third or fourth- 
rate man would probably ever be nominated for President, 
certainly no man could by any possibility be nominated 
whose political opinions were unknown and with whose polit- 
ical record the people were not familiar. The Republican 
party with such a system would never have been g-uilty of the 
folly of nominating- Andrew Johnson — nor would the voters 
in the Democratic party entertain for a moment the proposi- 
tion to nominate the Chief Justice as their candidate. Yet 
Johnson was nominated by a Republican convention and 
some of the Democratic manag-ers profess to favor the nom- 
ination of Mr. Chase in their convention. 

All know that Johnson was the choice of a few tricksters 
in the Baltimore convention, and not the choice of the Re- 
publican party. Mr. Chase would not be the first choice of 
one Democrat in a thousand, yet men are plotting- for his 
nomination in the Democratic convention, knowing- that if he 
can be nominated the despotism of king- caucus would compel 
the party to yield him its support. 

In order to obtain a sufficient number of votes to be in- 
cluded in the list of the five hig-hest or the three hig-hest 
voted for at the first election, it would be necessary, under 
the plan which I propose, to present to the voters of both 
parties or all parties, men of well-known character, ability 



— 502 — 

and political integritj. Ko faction or minority in anj party 
could then form combinations and secure nominations by 
fraud, nor could they defeat, as now, tlie nomination of any 
man "who was tlie choice of the majority ; schemers could 
not hold the ** balance of power" in any State, and compel 
the nomination of their candidate on pain of defeat at the 
election. The voice of each party in the nation would speak 
and be 'heard as a unit, and there would be no desperate 
efforts made, as now, by either party to secure a bare major- 
ity in large States by fraud and corruption, in order to secure 
their electoral vote. 

This proposition is so just that I hope it will commend 
itself to the Congress of the nation, as I am confident it will 
to the great body of the American people. Its adoption 
will secure to the voters of the nation a system, plain, simple, 
natural — a system free from complications and from the con- 
trol of minorities — one which permits no body of men or 
party machinery to interpose between the people and the 
ballot-box. 

CITIZENSHIP SUFFRAGE 

Mr. Chairman, if we adopt the proposition for the elec- 
tion of the President by a direct vote of the people, the neces- 
sity of securing the privileges of the ballot to every citize>n 
without distinction of race or color, whether native or f oreig-n 
born, will be conceded by all who desire the unity and stabil- 
ity of our Government. 

While I hold that Congress has the power, under the 
Constitution as it is, to clothe every citizen with the privileg-e 
of the ballot, I am confident it will never be- secured to them 
except by an amendment to the national Constitution. 

I am ready now, as I have been for years, to vote for an 
act of Congress securing the great privilege of the ballot to all 
citizens without regard to race or color in every State and 
Territory of the Republic. 

I cannot, however, shut my eyes to the fact that such an 
act of Cong'ress passed so soon after the rejection by a num- 
ber of States of amendments to their constitutions proposing" 
to confer suffrage on colored citizens, would meet with such 



— 503 — 

determined and united opposition from the so-called Demo- 
cratic party and from some professed Republicans, that in 
many localities it would end in violence and resistance to the 
execution of the law. 

I need not add that this resistance and violence would be 
inaugurated by the very class who to-day would demand the 
prompt and merciless execution of the infamous and brutal 
fugitive-slave act, if slavery were not abolished 

In the name of democracy and Christianity the enslave- 
ment of men has been sanctioned, and the most God-defying 
laws executed with the basest alacrity; while those enact- 
ments which ennoble and dignify the human race and recog- 
nize the rights and privileges of men are condemned and re- 
sisted by its professed disciples. 

I want citizenship and suffrage to be synonymous. To 
put the question beyond the power of States to withhold it, I 
propose the amendment to article fourteen, now submitted. 

A large number of Republicans who concede that the 
qualifications of an elector ought to be the same in every 
State, and that it is more properly a national than a State 
question, do not believe Congress has the power under our 
present Constitution to enact a law conferring suffrage in the 
States, nevertheless they are ready and willing to vote for 
such an amendment to the Constitution as shall make citizen- 
ship and suffrage uniform throughout the nation. 

For this purpose I have added to the proposed amendment 
for the election of President a section on suffrage, to which I 
invite special attention. 

This is the third or fourth time I have brought forward 
a proposition on suffrage substantially like the one just pre- 
sented to the House. I do so again because I believe the 
question of citizenship suffrage a question which ought to 
be met and settled now. Important and all-absorbing as 
many questions are which now press themselves upon our 
consideration, to me no question is so vitally important as 
this. Tariffs, taxation and finance ought not to be permitted 
to supersede a question affecting the peace and personal 
security of every citizen, and, I may add, the peace and 
security of the nation. 



— 504 — 

No party can be justified in withholding' the ballot from 
any citizen of mature years, native or foreig-n born, except 
such as are non compos or areg-uilty of infamous crimes; nor 
can they justly confer this g^reat privilege upon one class 
of citizens to the exclusion of another class simply because 
one is white and the other black. 

True democracy pleads for the equal rig-hts of all men 
before the law. It demands the ballot for every man, because, 
under a g"overnment such as ours, the ballot is the poor man's 
weapon of protection and defense. It g-ives him dig-nity and 
power; it recog-nizes his manhood and secures him justice; it 
makes the g"overnment his ag-ent instead of his master. We 
all know from experience something* of the educational in- 
fluence and self-protecting- power of the ballot. 

It quickens and expands the thoughts of men and enables 
them the better to comprehend their own interests and the 
higher and more important interests of the State. To secure 
this self-educating-, self-protecting- power to all, I ag-ain press 
upon your consideration this amendment. Its adoption will 
make the national Constitution what it oug-ht to be, the 
shield of every citizen, so that no State may ever again 
deprive him, without just cause, of this highest privileg-e of 
American citizenship; so that hereafter, if a citizen remove 
from one State into another, he shall not on that account be 
deprived by State law of the ballot and be treated in his own 
country as an alien. 

Pass this amendment, and we shall conform our national 
Constitution to our new condition as a nation. "We will there- 
by place in the hands of each citizen a new power for its 
preservation, so that we shall become, in fact, one people, 
living- under a common Constitution, which is the outgrowth 
of civilization, experience, and necessity; a Constitution 
which recog-nizes justice as the supreme law and reflects the 
convictions and aspirations of a free and united people. To 
this proposition, so long- cherished and believed by me to be 
for the best interests of my country, I invoke the considerate 
judg-ment of all men and an impartial verdict at the bar of 
public opinion. 



HON. JAMBS M. ASHLEY UNANIMOUSLY RE-NOMI- 
NATED FOR CONGRESS 



BY THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAIv CONVENTION OP THE 
TENTH DISTRICT. 



At Napoleon, August 19, 1868. 



The Republican Congressional Convention for the Tenth 
District met, pursuant to call, at Napoleon on the 19th inst., 
and brg-anized by electing- Hon. E. S. Blakeslee of Williams 
County, President, and F. C. Cully, of Wood County, Secre- 
tary. Hon. J. M. Ashley was nominated by acclamation. 

The Committee on Platform presented their report, which 
was unanimously adopted. Among* the resolutions were the 
following-: 

Resolved, That in the Hon. J. M. Ashley, the 10th 
Cong-ressional District has a true, worthy and able Represen- 
tative, and we do hereby most cordially endorse his political 
action as in harmony with true Republican principles. 

Resolved, That we cordially approve and recommend 
the adoption of the constitutional amendment introduced into 
Congress, on the 29th of May last, by our Representative, 
Hon. J. M. Ashley, so far as it proposes the election of a 
President by a direct vote of the people. That we also en- 
dorse his proposition to make citizenship and suffrag-e uni- 
form through all the States and Territories of the republic. 

The Committee appointed to notify Mr. Ashley of his 
nomination, returned and reported Mr. Ashley present to 
speak for himself. Mr. Ashley was received with enthusias- 
tic applause, and addressed the convention as follows: 

(505) 



— 506 — 

Mp. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: 

With all my heart I thank you for this generous and cor- 
dial welcome. 

I have no words at command with which to clothe the 
thoughts strug-g-ling- in my heart for utterance. I would that 
I had command of language, that I might appropriately ex- 
press to you the emotions that well up from my heart to my 
lips, so that you might realize how deeply and sensibly I feel 
the value of your unwavering support. As in the past it 
lias strengthened me in the discharge of every public duty 
and in all our political struggles, so in the future it will 
nerve my arm in the battle for the right. 

I appear before you in obedience to your summons, to 
accept the nomination which you have just tendered me with 
such unanimity and enthusiasm. 

I take with pride the position which you have assigned 
me, and beg you and the noble constituency whom you have 
the honor to represent, to accept my grateful acknowledg- 
ments for these repeated and distinguished marks of their 
respect, esteem, and confidence. 

We are about to enter upon a campaign in the Tenth 

District, the importance of which must not be underestimated. 

I shall need and hope to have your hearty co-operation, 

as well as that of every Republican and every friend of the 

workingman in the District. 

Our labor is not for the mere triumph of party, or the 
election of individual men, but for the triumph of great 
principles, upon the success of which v/e believe the future 
peace and welfare of the the nation depends. These, princi- 
ples are authoritatively announced for us in the national 
Republican platform which you have endorsed. I subscribe 
to them, most heartily, so far as they go, and only wish they 
were clearer and stronger in favor of impartial suffrage. 

Conflicting political opinions, which are fundamental, 
are sooner or later crystallized into political creeds and at- 
tract CO their support all who honestly subscribe to them. 
Hence we have conflicting political organizations. In a free 
government, such as ours, they are a necessity. A republi- 
can government could not long exist without them. All will 



— 507 — 

agree that it is the duty of every citizen to support v/ith its 
influence and his ballot, the party which best represents his 
political convictions. 

Which of the two g-reat parties now appealing- to you for 
your support best represents your views of local and national 
policy? Which by its acts and its history is the best entitled 
to your confidence and gratitude? As you do not judg-e men 
by their professions and promises, but by their acts and the 
company which they keep, so if you are honest with your- 
selves and just to your country, you will not judg-e parties by 
their promises and professions, but rather by their acts and 
the company which they keep. 

[Here the audience was so g-reat as to fill the court-house 
to suffocation, whereupon an adjournment was had to the 
open air, where, to an immense crowd, Mr. Ashley continued 
as follows:] 

• Let me ask what acts the party calling- itself Democratic, 
has done for the past quarter of a century, whether in power 
or out of power, which entitle it to your g-ratitude and sup- 
port? What promise has it made which it has not broken? 
What prediction has it made, which has not been falsified? 
What company has it been keeping- which entitles it to your 
love and confidence and to the confidence and love of the 
Union soldier? 

From the election of Van Bureu in 1836 to the election of 
Mr. Lincoln in 1860, with the exception of one month, this 
party has had absolute control of the National Government 
and of nearly all the State g-overnments. Its name was at- 
tractive; its professions hig-h-sounding-; its promises alluring-. 

In the name of democracy it assumed unwarranted power. 
It declared ag-ainst g-ranting- special privileg-es to the few at 
the expense of the many, while it fostered and aided in 
building- up an aristocracy the most despotic and offensive ever 
known among- men: an aristocracy of slave barons. While 
professing to defend the liberties and the rig-hts of mankind, 
it enslaved millions of men without scruple and sold them 
without remorse, like beasts in the shambles. When the free 
labor of the country saw and felt the deg-rading- competition 
of slave labor with their own, and demanded that it should 
not be permitted to g-o into Territories then free, this party 



— 508— 

"became tlie ally of the monopolists who claimed to own the 
laborer, and at the bidding* of these slave barons, aided in 
deg-rading" free labor by maintaining- that this olig-archy of 
slave barons had a right to take their slaves into any free 
Territory of the nation in defiance of the people. While pro- 
fessing- a love for the Union superior to all other parties, it 
announced doctrines which, if practically applied, could only 
result in the destruction of the Union. While charg-ing all 
anti-slavery men with being- disunionists, they openly support 
the most notorious disunionists for the most responsible offices. 
To every exacting- demand of these slave barons it compelled 
the nation to j'ield a deg-rading" obedience. With alacrit}' it 
voted aye whenever they demanded more terrritory for the 
extension of slavery. To their demand for a fug'itive-slave 
law, the most infamous -known in all history, it willing-ly 
consented. To their demand that the free territories of Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, w^hich by solemn covenant had been dedi- 
cated to free labor, should be opened up to slavery, it abjectly 
said amen. And finally, when this slave baron aristocracy 
became satisfied that the free labor of the country would no 
longer submit in the name of democracy to their imperious 
'demands and unconstitutional usurpations, they defiantly 
proclaimed that if the people should elect a President in 
favor of free labor and unfriendly to this privileged class 
and the pretensions of slavery, they would put into practical 
operation their doctrine of State rights, secede from the 
Union and destroy the government. 

Even this traitorous threat was approved and defended 
by a MAJORITY of the Northern leaders of this party, includ- 
ing James Buchanan, ex-President Pierce, Gov. Seymour, 
Vallandigham, Pendleton and Pugli. Some of these men 
joined the traitors in declaring that the United States had 
no constitutional power to prevent secession, and declared 
menacingly that if the Union men of the nation attempted 
to march an army into the South to put down rebellion, or in 
their own language, "attempted to coerce a sovereign 
SISTER State, we would have to march over their dead 

BODIES." 

I heard this declaration more than once from their 
acknowledged leaders. 



— 509 — 

This is the record of our opponents for a quarter of a 
century before the war, on the question of slavery, the rig"ht 
of , secession and the power of the nation to protect its own life 
when assailed. 

I hold that slavery is violative of every democratic prin- 
ciple, and that a slaveholder at heart could no more be a 
Democrat, in truth, than the prince of darkness could become 
an ang-el of light. I hold that the maintenance by this par- 
ty of the rig-htfulness of slavery and their support of the slave 
barons, laid the foundation for our late civil war, and that 
their defense of the doctrines of state rig-hts and secession aided 
and precipitated the rebellion and encourag-ed and strengthened 
it after the war began. 

Indeed, without this aid and co-operation of Northern 
pro-slavery Democrats, the rebellion would have been impos- 
sible, or if possible, must of necessity have been of but short 
duration. 

During- the canvass of 1860, this party openly declared 
that if the friends of free labor elected Mr. Lincoln, the slave 
•oligarchy would not submit. After his election and before 
his inauguration, part of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet and many 
of the recognized leaders of his party, conspired with the 
slave-holding traitors in an attempt to take possession of the 
National Capitol and inaugurate their rebel government, and 
thus prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln at "Washington. 
Their conspiracies, fortunately, failed, and Mr. Lincoln was 
inaugurated. The government, however, was almost in 
ruins, as they intended it should be, before Mr. Lincoln could 
assume power and protect it. They had armed the South and 
disarmed the North. They had deliberately destroyed the 
national credit — bankrupted the treasury, and laid the 
foundation for foreign intervention. 

Seven States had seceded and formed a National Confed- 
erate Government, with the co-operation, or at least without 
the protest, of Mr. Buchanan's administration. This Confed- 
erate Government had organized armies, which, under the 
command of its authorized leaders, was marching upon the 
Capitol of the Republic. You cannot have forgotten that all 
this occurred before Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated on the 4th 
of March, 1861. After this, many of the Northern leaders of 



— 510 — 

this party, both in and out of Congress, joined in the support 
of Buchanan's declaration that " if there was no constitutional 
rig-ht for secession, there was cleaely no constitutionai, 

AUTHORITY TO PREVENT SECESSION BY FORCE."' 

They proclaimed every measure adopted by Mr. Lincoln 
and the loyal Congress to put down the rebellion "danger- 
ous USURPATIONS." They declared that Mr. Lincoln's procla- 
mations were all void, and the emancipation of the slaves a 
violation of " vested rights." Indeed, during- the entire 
war, nothing" was regarded by them as constitutional which 
promised to crush the rebellion. They prophesied national 
bankruptcy, and everywhere published that the national debt 
would never be paid. They declared the war a failure, and 
did all they could to make it a failure, by discouraging enlist- 
ments, and encouraging desertions ; by conspiring to resist 
the government and aid the rebellion by a counter Northern 
insurrection. They were even guilty of the humiliating in- 
famy of asking Lord Lyons, the British Minister, to co-oper- 
ate with them in securing the intervention of the five great 
powers of Europe in favor of the rebel cause. Thanks to the 
heroism, endurance and fidelity of the Union soldiers and the 
great party to which you and I belong, the conspiracies of 
these men all failed; their prophecies all proved false, and 
the mightiest rebellion the world ever saw was crushed; the 
constitutional authority of the nation maintained over every 
foot of the national territory without compromise and without 
dishonor, and but for the conduct of this party for three 
years, and their co-operation with Andrew Johnson, every 
Southern State would ere this have been restored to its 
"practical relations in the Union," and the nation 
placed beyond the danger of another rebellion. After the re- 
bellion was crushed and the rebel armies disbanded, these 
men who before the war were the political disciples of the 
rebel chiefs, and their open and secret allies during the war, 
now unblushingly apologized for and defended the "lost 
CAUSE," declaring that the rebels had committed no crime, 
and had lost none of their rights by secession and rebellion, 
but were entitled without conditions, and on their own mo- 
tion, to return to the national Congress, with all the rights, 
privileges and dignities of loyal citizens and loyal States. 



— 511 — 

This wonderful party could never have survived its great 
crimes and violated pledg-es, its betrayal of freedom, and its 
hostility to free labor, but for its attractive and alluring- 
name. 

It has opposed every reform in the interest of liberty and 
free labor for the past quarter of a century. It opposed the con- 
stitutional amendment abolishing" slavery throughout the re- 
public, and sought to defeat the ratification of the Fourteenth 
Amendment, recently adopted, which amendment secured the 
equal rights of all citizens before the law and the equal pro- 
tection of the law to every stranger within our gates. It 
opposed the restoration of the rebel States to the Union on 
the basis of justice, and became the ally of our apostate 
President, and with the aid of seven wise and incorruptible 
judicial Republican Senators, saved him from the conviction 
due for his indefensible crimes. 

At last it openly joined hands in its great wigwam in 
New York with a majority of the late rebel leaders, and has 
presented for your suffrage Seymour and Blair, on a platform 
hostile to peace and constitutional government. 

In all their leaders said and did in that convention, you 
will find no sentiment in favor of universal liberty, or im- 
partial suffrage — nor in platform or speech will you find a 
word or line in condemnation of the rebellion and its horrible 
crimes; but everywhere outspoken sympathy with the rebel 
leaders and their agents, and outspoken hatred of th-e 
nation's deliverer and peerless chieftain. General Grant. 

This is in brief, a summary of the record, the prophesies 
and the promises which the leaders of the so-called Demo- 
cratic party, who are now asking for your votes, have made 
and the company they have kept and are now keeping. 

If any man approves and endorses all this, and much 
more than I have time to enumerate, let him vote for Seymour 
and Blair, and the nominees of that party. If he does not, 
let him vote for Grant and Colfax, and to maintain the great 
party that saved the nation's life, secured the triumph of 
free labor, and the liberty of millions. 

Let me now ask you to look for a few moments at the 
record of the Republican party; a record so grand and noble 
that no poor words of mine can present it, as it is mdelibiv 



— 512 — 

impressed upon the minds and hearts of all who love liberty 
and justice. 

Its principles came down to earth more than eig-hteen 
hundred years ag^o. Our fathers, when they established this 
government, recog^nized and embodied its great principles in 
our matchless Constitution. Prosperity came, and slavery, 
which our fathers supposed would be powerless under the 
new g"Overnment, soon overshadowed and controlled it, and 
for many years, in the name of democracy, made the love of 
liberty a crime. 

For nearly forty years a few of the g-randest men in the 
world's history, went forth like one of old crying" in the 
wilderness, to prepare the way for the national jubilee of our 
redemption. Without official position, without money, with- 
out power, they went forth proclaiming" the g"ospel of liberty 
for all, and because each " came neither eating nor drink- 
ing" in the Democratic wigwam, they said, "he hath a 
DEVIL," and being unable to listen and withstand such dan- 
gerous heresies, they forthwith stoned and mobbed, and as- 
sailed with unsavory eggs these prophets of the new evan- 
gel, who, in the land of Washington, came pleading for the 
liberty of the human race. 

After a long rnl weary struggle, in which the war 
against slavery was waged with irresistible power, despite 
mob law and mob violence and the fiendish spirit of hate and 
prejudice, Abraham Lincoln was carried by its matchless 
force into the presidential chair. 

The slave barons' rebellion was then inaugurated and 
crushed. The fundamental principles proclaimed by the 
Republican party, became the corner-stone of our national 
Constitution. Millions of men emancipated by Mr. Lincoln's 
proclamation, had their freedom guaranteed and made secure 
by an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery 
forever, and after a long struggle they were enfranchised in 
all the rebel States, so that never again, on American soil, 
shall a slave stand in chains beneath 

*'The starry-gemmed flag of the free." 

The Fourteenth Amendment was also proposed and adopted, 
and to-day it is part of our national Constitution. These two 



— sis- 
amendments are worth the strug"g"le of a century. Bj them 
liberty and justice are established throug"hout all the borders 
of the republic. All men are thus made equal before the 
law, and cannot be denied, in any State, the equal protection 
of the law. No traitor of the class enumerated can hold any 
office of honor, trust, or profit until his disabilities are 
removed by a two-thirds vote of each House of Congress. 
The public debt, created to save the nation's life, and to pay 
the pensions and bounties of soldiers and their widows and 
orphans, shall not be questioned in any place. 

What a sublime triumph! The rebellion crushed, and 
liberty and equal justice for all made the fundamental law. 
No broken promises; no violated faith; no alliance with 
treason; no conspiracy with European monarchies in aid of 
the rebel cause and agfainst the life of the republic. This is 
the record of the Republican party. 

For all this we are indebted to the men who received 
into their hearts the sublime doctrines of the Declaration of 
Independence, and consecrated their lives to a vindication of 
the great truths which it contains. 

To the anti-slavery men and women of the United 
States we owe our political redemption as a nation. 

They who endured social and political ostracism, the 
hatred of slave masters and the cowardly assaults of Northern 
mobs, in defense of those who were manacled and dumb, and 
could not ask for help, were the moral heroes of our great 
anti-slavery revolution. To them and to many thousands 
whose names will never be written on the pages of history, 
but whose lives v/cre as true, as unselfish and as consecrated 
as any, ia the nation indebted for its regenerated Constitution, 
its vindication of the risfhts of human nature, and its solemn 
pledge for the future impartial administration of justice. 

To me these are the men whose lives are the most 
beautiful and the most valuable. I admire most of all that 
man who, having adopted ideas which he believes to be right, 
adheres to them through good and evil report, and conse- 
crates his life to their development. I do not ask whether he 
agrees or disagrees with me on any other question. I only 



— 514 — 

care to know that he follows with fidelity his hig-hest and best 
convictions. 

I hail any true man as a worthy co-worker in th«- inter- 
ests of mankind, who, with the same labor, can cause one. 
additional spear of g-rass to g-row where but one grows now. 
I welcome any man who, by any invention or contribution to 
science or art, to literature, or to law, aids in elevating-, 
ennobling- and bettering the condition of mankind. 

The world is full of men whose pure and unselfish lives 
ennoble and dignify the human race. 

My exemplars are the men who in all ages have lived such 
lives, whether religious reformers like Luther or Weslc}', or 
philosophers and statesmen like Hampden and Sydney, Locke 
and Bacon, Cobden and Bright, and John Sl-iart Mill, or like 
our own "Washington and Lincoln, Phillips and Garrison, 
Chase and Sumner, Greeley and Gerrit Smith. To me the 
only model statesman, is he who secures liberty and impartial 
justice for all and protects the weak against the strong. He 
is the statesman and the benefactor who aids in educating- 
the ignorant, and in lightening the cares of the toiling mil- 
lions. Since I became 3"our representative I have attempted 
to follow the pathway illumined by the footprints of such 
men as I have named. How well I have succeeded you must 
determine. 

I welcome all men as co-laborers in the interests of 
the liberty of mankind, whether agreeing with me or not, 
who follow conscientiously their highest and best convic- 
tions, for "the; harvest is plenty but the laborers are 

FEW." 

He who consecrates his life to any great work in the in- 
terest of truth and justice, of science or mecjianics, or an}-- 
thing which promises to benefit mankind, commands my 
highest admiration. Only day before yesterday, from all 
parts of Continental Burope there were gathered together in 
Abyssinia, so recently the theatre of desolating war, a large 
number of scholars and philosophers, to make astronom- 
ical observations in the interest of science, civilization and 
peace. 

As the world is interested in the event, and I hope is to be 
benefited by the discoveries which the several corps of scien_ 



— 515 — 

tific explorers now in that country may make, I allude to it 
here, and use the fact, to illustrate what I mean, when I say 
that I welcome and recog-nize all men, in whatever depart- 
ment of human labor, who follow their hig-hest and best con- 
victions and consecrate their lives to the great work of better- 
ing the condition of mankind. 

The g-entlemen to whom I have referred visited Abyssinia 
because there was to be a total eclipse of the sun in the far 
East on the I7th of this month. The sun would be as far 
from the earth as it ever is, while the moon was almost as 
near. The sun would thus appear small, and the moon com- 
paratively larg-e. These conditions make it favorable for 
astronomical observations, and as the eclipse was expected 
to be total in Abyssinia and remain unchanged for about 
seven minutes, the men of science have gone thither. 

Their theory is, that there is another and a younger 
planet, nearer the sun than Mercury, which has never been 
seen by mortal eye, and of whose movements they propose to 
take observations. No telescope has ever yet penetrated this 
space or revealed the mystery of the presence of this planet, 
and yet there were hundreds of men gathered from all parts 
of Europe day before yesterday, confident that their theory 
would be confirmed. This to me is a sublime spectacle. Not 
for the love of money, or power, or place were these men 
gathered together, but for the love of science and the hope 
of benefiting mankind. The men who in workshop, or field, 
or garret, toil to develop any idea which promises to promote 
the peace and happiness of the human race, are the men who 
command my enthusiastic admiration. 

These are the world's real heroes, to whom mankind owe 
a debt of gratitude which they can never repay. These are the 
kind of men for the most part who organized and consolidated 
the great Republican party of America and led it to victory. 
These are the men in whose presence the world should stand 
with uncovered head. 

There are thousands of men and women in this District 
whose unselfish fidelity to the right, in all our great strug- 
gles, entitle them to be classed with the world's real heroes; 
these are those whom I have sought more especially to repre- 



— 516 — 

sent; and they are the men, I am proud to know, who have 
upheld me ia every battle. 

In the presidential canvass upon which we are just en- 
tering-, this is the class of men upon whom the nation must 
rely. Whatever may be our differences as to men, or on mi- 
nor questions of tariffs and taxation, we are all ag-reed as to 
the imperative necessity of saving- the nation from the possi- 
bility of another rebellion. This can be done by the election 
of General Grant, because all believe that his election will 
g"ive us peace. This, all men concede, will save us from a 
reign of terror and violence. No existing- State government 
will be subverted or overthrown. No loyal man, whether 
white or black, will be disfranchised or deprived of his nat- 
ural or political rights, but the work of enfranchisement wi*l'l 
g-o steadily and securely on until all men who swear fidelity 
to the Constitution shall be enfranchised and disenthralled. 

I had intended, in what I said to-day, to render a short 
account of my stewardship since I became your Representa- 
tive, but I have already detained you too long. There is one 
matter, however, to which, in closing, I will refer to here 
and at this time, so as to put to rest the silly inventions of 
men who seem only to hope for political preferment by mis- 
representing and pulling- others down. 

If any man can point to a vote, or to a speech which I 
have made in Congress in favor of or against the passage of 
any law, to which he objects, I am ready to answer. 

No man has ever been deceived, when voting- for me, and 
I do not intend that any man shall be deceived. 

Upon the question of suffrage, I made a speech last year, 
to which I wish to call your attention. You will find it in 
the Congressional Globe of last December. I stand by the 
propositions and declarations which I then made, because 
they are the sentiments of my heart. 

Agreeing with the great body of the Republican party 
as to the practicability and necessity of impartial suffrage I 
could never, by my vote, consent to the disfranchisement of 
any person, competent for the ordinary duties of a citizen, 
except as a punishment for crime. 

I hold that every adult citizen of the United States, and 
every adult citizen of a civilized nation who is naturalized 



— 517 — 

in the United States, and not disqualified because non com- 
pos, or by conviction for crime, ought to have a voice in the 
affairs of his g-overnment. In this country our fathers pro- 
claimed the log-ic of the American revolution when they 
declared the great fundamental truth, which was then, for 
the first time, recognized among- men, "that all governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
Upon this i-mpregnable truth I stand, as I have ever stood, 
and plead for the enfranchisement of every citizen capaci- 
tated for the ordinary duties of life, whether native born or 
naturalized, white or black. I demand that all shall have 
the gj".eat privilege and self-protecting power of the ballot 
because they are American citizens. What I ask for myself 
and mine I demand for the h-umblest among men. I have, 
therefore, proposed that citizenship and suffrage should be 
uniform throughout the nation, and this I am happy to know 
you have authoritatively endorsed. 

I hold that the government which does not secure equal 
rights for all its citizens, without regard to race, nationality 
or color, is not a just government, and is in no sense of the 
word a democratic or republican government. 

I say this much here and now on the question of suffrage, 
"because I have been falsely charged with attempting to dis- 
franchise American citizens, especially the Germans, who 
have ever been my most earnest and consistent friends. I do 

NOT NOW, NOR HAVK I EVER ADVOCATED THE ESTABLISHMENT 
OF A STANDARD FOR VOTING INCONSISTENT WITH THE IDEA OP 
IMPARTIAL, SUFFRAGE. 

I recognize, as the corner-stone of the republic, the com- 
mon sense and the love of 'justice of her toiling millions. 
Their strong arms and brave hearts must ever be her shield 
of protection and defense. As a nation, I know that our 
future greatness, and grandeur, and glory, depend upon 
them. By no act or vote of mine shall any natural right or 
political privilege be taken away from any of these, whether 
native or foreign born, either because they are poor, or be- 
cause they are ignorant, or because they are black, so long as 
they recognize their allegiance to our Constitution, and live 
in obedience to law, beneath the protecting folds of the ban- 
ner of the free. 



518- 




The speaker was frequently interrupted with applause 
from the immense crowd he was addressing-. The convention 
dispersed at about 6 p. m. 

Letter from Bishop W. J. Gaines, D. D., Atlanta, Ga. 
We have never read a grander speech than the foreg-oing, made 
on accepting' a political nomination. In thoug'ht and style, in cleai - 
ness of statement, and in all that g-oes to make up a model and 
manly political stump speech, this speech at Napoleon, in 1868, is not 
|y surpassed in this collection. "I hold that'the g-overnment which does 
" not secure equal rights for its citizens, -without reg-ard to race, na- 
■ ; tionality or color, is not a just government, and is in no sense of the 
■word a democratic or republican government. I say this much here 
' W. J. GAINES. and now on the question of suffrage, because I have been falsely 
charged with attempting" to disfranchise American citizens, especially the Germans, 
who have ever been my most earnest and consistent friends. I do not, nor have I 

EVER ADVOCATED THE ESTABLISHMENTOF A STANDARD FOR VOTING INCONSISTENTWITH 

THE IDEA OF IMPARTIAL SUFFRAGE." A careful reader of the orations and speeches 
published in this volume, cannot fail to be impressed with [the dignity and character 
of the man who made them. His unquestioned ability, his singleness of purpose, and his 
transparent sincerity, shine out bright and clear on every page. In the fierce and pas- 
sionate battle between freedom and slavery, he early in life unselfishly espoused the 
cause of our race, because, as he declared in some of the speeches in this book," he be- 
lieved that the true democratic idea recognized liberty as the birthright of the human 
race." And this belief is so happily expressed and so generously stated in all he said 
or wrote, when protesting against the enslavement of men,] that even now, it gives 
force and power to what he then wrote and said. As our Methodist brethren say, he 
simply believed, and so believing, was able to impress that belief on his hearers, and 
now we do not doubt that the speeches which we have compiled will make a like im- 
pression on all who read this book. W. J. Gaines. 



SPEKCH 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO. 



Delivered in the House of Representatives, 
February 13tli, 1869. 



democratic representative government can onIvY be 

maintained by the subordination of the executive 

and judiciai, to the legislative authority. 



THE minority must have proportionable representation 
IN state legislatures, and in the national congress. 



The House being- in Committee of the Whole on the State 
of the Union — 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said: 

Mr. Chairman: At the last session I proposed an amend- 
ment to the national Constitution which provided for the 
abolition of the office of Vice-President, and for the nomina- 
tion and election of the President without the intervention of 
caucuses, conventions, or presidential electors. In addition 
to this there was a clause which provided that the election of 
a President should never devolve, as now, on the House of 
Representatives. 

When submitting- that proposition I intended to do no 
more than suggest the practicability of abolishing- the office 
of Vice-President and to call the attention of the thoug-htf ul 
men of the nation to the admitted defect in our present system 
of electing- the President. I did not expect to secure, either 
at that session or this, the favorable action of Congress on 

(519) 



— 520— 

that proposition; nor do I now expect to secure favorable ac- 
tion on the propositions I am about to present. I know how 
reluctantly the mass of mankind consent to reforms or chang-es 
of any kind, especially in matters of government. I know 
how accustomed they are to run in grooves, and how adverse 
they are to agitators and to all ideas which disturb them or 
jog them out of their old and familiar paths; nor am I un- 
mindful of the fact that it would probably require years of 
persistent labor to bring the people to approve the changes in 
their organic law which I propose. John Stuart Mill, in 
speaking of governmental reform, says that "there is a natural 
prejudice against everything which professes much; that its 
perfection stands in its way, and is the great obstacle to its 
success." Admitting the full force of this statement, and 
realizing how thankless is the self-imposed task which I am 
about to undertake, I nevertheless feel it to be my duty, before 
the expiration of my term of service, to offer for the consid- 
eration of the people, and especially for the consideration of 
those who are soon to be charged with the administration of 
the Government, the propositions which I now make for 
amending the national Constitution. The clerk will please 
read. 

Mr. Wii<IvIAMs, of Indiana. I would like to ask the gen- 
tleman from Ohio why he offers these propositions now, if, 
as he says, he has no hope of their passage during this 
Congress. 

Mr. Ashlejy, of Ohio. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Williams] asks me why I introduce these propositions now if 
I have no hope of their passage. After the amendment is 
read, and before submitting the observations which I propose 
to make, I will answer him. Let the amendment providing 
for the modification of the veto power be now read. 



THE T.KTO POWER. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Strike out clauses two and three in section seven of the 
Constitution and insert the following: 

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Repre* 



— 521 — 

sentatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be 
presented to the President of the United States; if he ap- 
prove, he shall sig-n it, but if not, he shall return it with his 
objections to the house in which it originated, who shall en- 
ter the objections at large on their journal and proceed to re- 
consider it. If, after such reconsideration, a majority of all 
the members elected and qualified in that House shall agree 
to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the President's 
objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be 
reconsidered, and if approved by a majority of all the mem- 
bers elected and qualified in that house it shall become a law. 
But in all cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by 
the yeas and nays, and the name of the person voting for and 
against the bill shall be entered on the journal in each house 
respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the Presi- 
dent within ten daj^s (Sundays excepted) after it shall have 
been presented to hmi the same shall be a law in like man- 
ner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by adjournment 
prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. Every 
order, resolution or vote to which the concurrence of the Sen- 
ate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except 
on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the Pres- 
ident of the United States, and before the same shall take 
eifect shall be approved by him, or being- disapproved by him 
shall be repassed by the Senate and House of Representatives 
according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case 
of a bill. 

Mr. Ashi<ey, of Ohio. I will say to my friend from In- 
diana [Mr. "Williams] that I offer this amendment as I have 
heretofore offered other propositions which at the time of 
offering them I did not expect to see pass. I have sometimes 
offered propositions for which I had no intention of voting, 
in order to provoke a discussion of the question presented. 
For this I have been roundly abused by manj-, while others 
have called me the "suggesting member." I offer the prop- 
ositions which I now submit and advocate them because con- 
vinced of their necessity. As the most disgraceful executive 
administration which has ever cursed the country is about to 
die and pass into history, I believe it an opportune moment in 
which to present and discuss such propositions as I now sub- 
mit, so that the people may be apprised of the danger which 
threatens them in the future. 

Mr. Williams, of Indiana. But you cannot get a vote on 
them now. 



— 522 — 

Mr. Ashlby, of Ohio. I know that. Only a moment ag-o 
I said that I did not offer them with any hope of seeing- them 
passed by this Congress. That does not deter me, however, 
from presenting* and discussing- them. I know that many 
men would not present them unless assured of their favorable 
reception by their party. I care nothing about that. During- 
my term of service here I have been more concerned to be 
right than to have personal success, or to have the credit of 
securing the passage of any particular measure. This is well 
known to my associates here, and especially to gentlemen 
who for the past ten years have been connected with the 
public press. I have been more anxious that the work in 
which I was eng-aged should be done, and well done, than I 
have been about what would happen politically to myself. I 
have always acted on the theory that politically he who would 
save his own life should lose it. If in our reconstruction 
measures the Republican party as a body had acted upon this 
theory, and gone to the; root of the; matter, and made our 
Constitution conform to our new condition as a nation, 
instead of enacting laws and submitting constitutional 
amendments which were but patchwork, we should not 
now be environed with the difficulties which surround 
US. I submit these propositions because I believe they involve 
practical questions of the hig-hest importance, and because I 
believe that to statesmen no question affecting- the welfare of 
the nation or the rig-hts of its citizens can be of secondary 
importance. 

Mr. Chairman, I am a firm believer in the necessity of the 
propositions which I make for the abolition of the king-ly 
prerogatives of the President by a modification of the veto pow- 
er ; and providing- the manner of appointing- and the manner in 
which all appointees should be removed from office; for limit- 
ing the terms of service of judg-es of the Supreme Court, as also 
their jurisdiction; for making them after their appointment 
ineligible to any office under the National Government, 
except, perhaps, foreign embassadorships, and ,for retiring- 
them at the end of their term of service on such pay as Con- 
gress ma}^ deem to be just and proper. No less important, it 
seems to me, is the question of appointing- United States 
Senators by a direct vote of the qualified electors of each 



— 523 — 

State by ballot, instead of electing- them as now by the leo-is- 
latures of the several States; and last, thoug-h not least, the 
necessity of securing- to the minority an equitable voice in 
the administration of the g-overnment. To these several 
propositions I invite the considerate attention of all who 
recog-nize the fact that the whole power of the g-overnment is 
g-radually but surely passing- into the hands of the President 
and the Supreme Court. 

Mr. Chairman, it is claimed by the advocates of the veto 
power that under our form of g-overnment the Executive 
represents the whole people, and is the person in whose 
hands the requisite power oug-ht to be lodg-ed to protect the 
interests and rights of minorities, and to check hasty and in- 
considerate leg-islation. To this I answer that hasty and in- 
considerate leg-islation may be checked and a careful recon- 
sideration had of every bill which Cong-ress may pass by the 
return of such bill by the President, with his objections, and 
its reconsideration and passage by a majority of all the Sena- 
tors and Representatives elected and qualified, as I propose 
in the amendment which I have submitted. 

It is a fallacy to suppose that the minority can have any 
security from the use of the executive veto. The only way 
in which such protection could be obtained for them would 
1)6 for the majority in the two houses of Congress to concede 
to the minority the President — a proposition which the ma- 
jority would not entertain for a moment. All know that, as 
a rule, the party strong enough to elect its President will be 
strong enough to elect a majority of Representatives of the 
same political faith, so that there must always be added to 
the numerical strength of the representative majority the co- 
operative will of a President of their own selection, armed 
with the veto power, which under our system is secured to 
the President, and by its use and the entire patronage of 
the government, which, as all know, amounts to many hun- 
dred millions, he is practically a king during his official term. 

If we can modify the executive veto and obtain an equi- 
table representation in Congress for the minority, the future 
of representative government in this country will be secured; 
■without it we cannot have such a negative on the acts of the 
majority as will afford proper security to the rights of minor- 



— 524 — 

ities, and the leg-islative will of partisan majorities will by 
degree* be concentrated in the hands of the Executive. The 
experience of the past quarter of a century demonstrates the 
fact that the whole power of the National Government is grad- 
ually but surely passing- under the complete control of our 
Presidents. The strug-g-le of the g-reat political parties for 
place and power strengthens his authority, and makes his 
will during- his term of office the only law known to partisan 
Representatives in Congress. Against this violation of the 
representative principle and this dang-erous innovation by our 
Executives of the fundamental theory upon which our Gov- 
ernment was founded I am utterly opposed. All will admit 
that the veto power conferred upon the Executive by the 
present Constitution is a power at war with the democratic 
idea. There are but few men who have g-iven the subject 
any consideration who will not concede that it is a dangerous 
power to lodge in the hands of any man, and that it is a 
power with which no man, however able or reputable, should 
be intrusted in a republic. This power in the hands of 
any man who is not absolutely infamous or an imbecile en- 
ables him, with the use of executive patronage, to defeat the 
will of the nation so long as he remains in the presidential 
office. No man has ever discharged the duties of the execu- 
tive office, nor is it probable that any man ever will, who is 
so far above the representatives of the people either in wis- 
dom or patriotism as to justify the lodgment of such vast 
power in his hands. 

I am willing, if after discussion it be thought best to 
have some check against haste and inconsiderate legislation, 
that the President shall have a modified negative, such as I 
propose, so that the representatives of the people may avail 
themselves of any suggestions which a citizen so distin- 
guished as our Presidents ought to be, might make to Con- 
gress when returning a bill for their reconsideration. I am 
unwilling, however, to intrust any man with power sufficient 
to overrule the deliberately formed opinions of a majority of 
all the men who have been elected and qualified as Senators 
and Representatives in the Congress of the United States. 
The veto power, as now conferred by the Constitution, makes 
the will of the President equivalent to that of twelve Sena- 



— 525 — 

tors, when there are seventj-eig-ht members of that body, and 
equivalent to thirty-eig-ht members of this House, when com- 
posed of two hundred and thirty-three members. Thus one 
man, often a very ordinary man, is made by this anti- 
democratic provision of our Constitution the equal in legisla- 
tive power, and the theory is that he is equal in wisdom, to 
fifty Senators and Representatives when the two houses to- 
gether have 311 members. 

For instance, when the States are all represented in the 
Senate there are seventy-eight Senators; of this number forty 
are a majority. If the President veto a bill it requires two- 
thirds of the Senate to repass it, which, in a full Senate, with 
seventy-eight members, requires fifty-two votes. It will 
thus be seen, that the veto power makes the President equal 
in leg-islative power to twelve Senators. In the House, with 
233 members present, it requires 117 votes to pass a bill. If 
the President veto it it requires 156 votes to pass it over the veto, 
which makes the veto power of the President equal to thirty- 
eight members of the House of Representatives and equiva- 
lent to fifty Senators and Representatives when both houses 
number 311 members. Add to this monarchical prerogative 
the overshadowing- authority which the appointing" power al- 
ways confers on an executive or king", and you have at the 
head of the Government, a man whose will is practically the 
law of the land, as long" as he is able to maintain himself in 
the presidential office. 

The framers of the Constitution intended that there 
should be three departments in this Government, the legisla- 
tive, executive and judicial, and that these departments 
should be separate and distinct. That was their theory. 
They held, as I hold, that no free g"overnment can long" en- 
dure which violates this fundamental theory. If this theory 
be a correct one, then the Executive of this nation ought not 
to be clothed with any part of the law-making" power. It was 
intended that our laws should be the embodied will of the 
nation, as authoritatively expressed by Cong-ress. To execyte 
these laws was to be the duty of the Executive, and I hold 
that this ought to be his chief duty. To clothe the Executive 
with the veto power is to make him part of the law-making" 
power, which is a violation of the theory upon which the 



— 526 — 

g-overnment was org-anized. I shall never cease m}^ war up- 
on this kingly prerogative. I believe it to be utterly indefen- 
sible in a democratic republic. Secure the minority an equal 
personal representation in the national Congress, as I pro- 
pose, and there can be no necessity for the veto and no pre- 
text for maintaining so despotic and dangerous a power in 
the hands of any man. 

Examine the yea and na}^ vote of this House for ten 
years and j^ou will find that when a majority of all proposi- 
tions were voted upon about one-fifth of the members were 
absent. If one-fifth of the members of both houses are ab- 
sent when propositions are voted upon, as a rule it will be 
found that the larger number are of the majority party. In a 
House of 233 members we will have, if about one-fifth are 
absent, say 190 votes; of this number 96 are a majority-. If 
the President return a bill with his objections, my amend- 
ment requires the bill to secure 117 votes to again pass it, 
whereas, under our present Constitution, a less number may 
make two-thirds of a quorum and pass the bill over the veto. 
One hundred and seventeen members make a quorum in a 
full House composed of 233 members; a majority of this 
quorum, or 59, may pass a bill. If it is vetoed, and only a 
quorum are present, 78 members may pass the bill over the 
veto, or 39 less than a majority of all the members of the 
House. Practically then, the proposition which I make gives 
the minority all the security they ought to have against 
hasty and inconsiderate legislation where provision is made 
that a bill to be repassed must have a majority of all the 
members elected and qualified in each House. It requires 
time and labor to bring the absent members here when ques- 
tions of great importance are pending. A bill, therefore, 
which, on a rehearing, passes both houses by a majority of 
all the members of each, notwithstanding- the President's ob- 
jections, ought, in my opinion, to become a law. 

From the organization of the government to this hour 
no one question has employed so much of the time and atten- 
tion of the thoughtful statesmen of the nation as the danger 
incident to the use and abuse of the executive power. When 
our entire annual revenue from all sources did not exceed 
$25,000,000, and the number of officers and agents employed 



— 527 — 

bj the g-overnment did not number one-fiftli what they do to- 
day, this subject engag-ed the attention for many years of the 
ablest men in Congress. Clay, Berrien, Badg-er, Ewing, 
White, Webster, and many other statesmen of national 
reputations and conceded abilities all concurred in the neces- 
sity of modifying- the executive veto and limiting- the use of 
executive patronag-e. To this last proposition Mr. Calhoun 
gave much thoug-ht and labor, demonstrating- its necessity by 
able speeches and one of the most valuable reports ever sub- 
mitted on that subject to Congress. No man can read the 
able reports made to Cong-ress in 1835 and the discussion on 
these two questions in both houses of Cong-ress, both before 
and since that time, without being- deeply impressed with the 
g-reat wisdom and foresig-ht of the men whom I have named. 

Some estimate may be formed of the vast patronag-e now 
at the disposal of the Executive by an inquiry into the amount 
of revenue annually collected and disbursed, and the number 
of officers and ag-ents employed by the g-overnment in its col- 
lection and disbursement. 

The Clerk will please read the tabular statement which I 
send to the desk, showing- the amount in millions and tenths; 
collected and expended by the g-overnment annually. 

The Clerk read as follows: 
Table showing- the receipts and expenditures of the United 

States Government in millions of dollars and tenths from 

July 1, 1861, to June 30, 1868: 

Fiscal year. Receipts. Expenditures. Balances. 

1862 612.6 565.7 46.9 

1863 936.3 899.8 36.5 

1864 1430.0 1295.5 134.5 

1865 1940.4 1906.4 33.9 

1866 1304.8 1139.3 165.5 

1867 1263.3 1093.1 170.1 

1868 1200.9 1069.9 131.0 



Total in seven years 8688.1 7969.7 718.4 



Averag-e per year 1241.1 1138.5 102.6 

Mr. Ashi,ey, of Ohio. It will be seen by this lablc ihat 



— 528 — 

our averag-e annual receipts for the past seven 3'ears were 
over $1,241,000,000; that our annual expenditures were over 
$1,138,000,000, and that there has been on an averag-e during- 
all that time over $100,000,000 in the public treasury. 

Mr. Chairman, if the ablest statesmen of the past g-enera- 
tion were alarmed for the safet}- of republican institutions, be- 
cause of the use which the Executive power could make of t lie 
patronag-e of the g-overnment when its entire revenue did not 
exceed $25,000,000, and its officers were less than one-fifth of 
the present number, what would be their amazement could 
they look upon these fig-ures and realize the enormous in- 
crease of power and patronag-e now claimed for the Executive 
and conceded to him by the leading- men of the nation with- 
out a protest. 

The Official Register for 1867 shows the number of 
g-overnment officers and employees in civil service to be about 
75,000. The cost of the civil and miscellaneous list for the 
fiscal year 1867 was $49,600,000, and for 1868, $51,600,000. 
The expenditures of the War and Navy Departments for 1867 
were $126,300,000; for 1868, $149,000,000. The number of 
non-commissioned officers and privates in the army for 1867 
was 77,000, that of commissioned officers about 3,000. The 
number of officers and men employed in the navy in 1867 was 
over 11,000. So that in the civil and military and naval ser- 
vice of the g-overnment there are over 160,000 in the employ 
of the g-overnment, all of whom are practically subject to the 
order of the President and dependent for subsistence on the 
public treasury. 

Startling- as is this array, it does not include those Vho 
furnish supplies for the army and nav}- and for the Indian 
and other departments of the g-overnment, all of whom are 
more or less dependent on the g-overnment for support. Ex- 
perience teaches us that this vast army of office-holders, em- 
ployees, ag-cnts, and dependents are influenced more or less by 
the Executive will, and I am confident their power has never 
been overestimated. 

Add to these, the innumerable number of office expectants, 
in every county, in every State and Territory, who are intent 
on securing- the offices and places now occupied by others, 
and you may form some estimate of the many thousands in 



— 529 — 

the countr}' now appealing- to the Executive for a recognition of 
their claims. Of this great army a large majority stand ready 
to declare that every act and utterance of the Executive is the 
embodiment of vi^isdom and the perfection of statesmanship; 
indeed, they will not hesitate to say that the most impercep- 
tible wink of the eye or nod of the head of his Excellency has 
behind it a meaning* as full of significance as any of his ut- 
terances. So utterly abased and subservient has the public 
mind become because of the existence of this over-shadowing- 
power that men are dumb in the presence of the Executive, 
and dare not so much as express an opinion, much less criti- 
cise unfavorably his official acts. It is well known to ob- 
servers how devoid of all manhood men become under the 
practical workings of this pernicious sj-stem, which centres 
all power in the hands of the Executive. 

Even the acting- President, whose treason I regard as 
baser than that of Davis, had an army of apologfists and de- 
fenders in the Republican party. It is well known that there 
were at one time in the Senate and House of the Thirty- 
ninth Cong-ress over sixty men elected by the Republican par- 
ty who stood ready to co-operate with Johnson in his work of 
usurpation if there could be but the certainty of success. 
How many of them were ready to go the whole length, as 
he did, and abandon the g-reat central idea of the Republican 
party, will never be known. Nor will the nation ever know 
how much it owes to its faithful representatives who defeated 
this infamous conspiracy. There are members now within 
the sound of my voice, who know where these men met in se- 
cret in this city, to confer with a President whose apostasy 
•was known to all men, and whose treason was as clear as the 
sun at noonday. No such meetings would ever have been 
held, no such infamous proposition would have been for a 
moment entertained by these men, but for the fact that the 
President had the veto and appointing- power. Before this 
corrupting- power men intrusted and honored by the Republi- 
can party abased themselves, and for a time imperiled the 
future of the republic. 



— 530 — 

ON THE PARDONING POWER. 

Mr. Chairman, in order to prevent the abuse of the par- 
doning" power now conferred by the Constitution on the Ex' 
ecutive, section two of article two ought to be amended so as 
read: 

And he (the President) shall have power, with the ap- 
proval in writing" of a majority of his Cabinet council, to 
grant reprieves and pardons for offenses committed against 
the United States after trial and conviction, except in cases 
of impeachment; but he shall g-rant no g^eneral amnesty or 
pardon to persons who are or who may have been eng-ag-ed in 
insurrection or rebellion ag^ainst the United States until he 
shall have first obtained the advice and consent of the Con- 
gress. 

I sug-gest this additional proposition, because I believe 
that no one man in any government ought to be clothed with 
unlimited power to grant pardons. It is a power liable to great 
abuse in the hands of an}- man, however able or upright. In 
the hands of a bad man it is a power which defeats the ends 
of justice and gives immunity to crime. The acting Presi- 
dent has been for four j^ears a national dispenser of pardons. 
I do not now refer to the unwarranted assumption of power 
on the part of the acting Executive in pardoning all the re- 
sponsible and most guilty leaders of the late rebellion, nor to the 
fact that it is publicly announced as b}' authority, that before 
he retires from office, he will probably pardon the last of the 
assassin conspirators who murdered Mr. Lincoln, and thus 
placed him in the presidential office. It is enough to refer 
to the fact that he has pardoned confessed criminals before 
trial, and to the still more startling fact that he has pardoned 
over one hundred men, after trial and conviction, for the 
crime of counterfeiting the notes and other securities of the 
United States. 

I need not say to members of this House that counterfeit- 
ing is one of the most indefensible of all crimes. Successful 
counterfeiting requires a large outlay of money, a hign order 
of intellect and great skill in the preparation of ever3'thing 
connected with it. It must be done deliberately and with 
great secrecy. No immediate or pressing want of the person 
engaged in it, nor of any one depending on him for support, 



-531 — 

can be the impelling- cause. No sudden impulse of passion; 
no motive such as often prompts men to commit crime under 
the pretext of retaliating- for some actual or fancied injury; 
no cry of despair from wife and children because of hun"-er 
and cold, but almost every person eng-ag-ed in the commission 
of this crime is a cultivated, deliberate, calculating- villain, 
coolly weighing- his chances and premeditating- his every act. 
I am unable to divine the motive which has prompted the 
acting- Executive to set at larg-e almost every one of this class 
of criminals who during- the past four years have been dis- 
covered, tried, and convicted at great cost to the government. 
The fact, I believe, is notorious and undisputed, and I can 
only account for the apparent indifference of the public to 
this shameless prostitution of authority, intended only for 
beneficent purposes, on the hypothesis that they feel power- 
less in the presence of the defiant usurper of the White 
House, who, having been acquitted by the Senate of greater 
crimes, may, without question and with impunity, commit 
the lesser one of turning hundreds of dangerous criminals up- 
on the country to prey upon the ignorant and unsuspecting 
and again engage in depreciating the credit of the nation by 
counterfeiting its securities. If the approval in writing of a 
majority of Mr. Johnson's Cabinet had been required as a 
condition to the pardon of the counterfeiters whom he has re- 
leased, I am confident that but few, if any of them, would 
have been set at large to prey again upon the country. At 
all events I am unwilling to lodge the power to pardon even 
common criminals in the hands of any one man. In short, I 
am against the one-man power in any form, in any depart- 
ment of the Government. 

If the question were now submitted to me whether to con- 
tinue the executive office with the power now lodged in the 
hands of the President, or abolish the office altogether, I 
would vote to abolish it. For years I have believed that the 
executive power was the rock on which as a nation we should 
eventually be broken to pieces. It is the province of true 
statesmanship to point out prospective danger and suggest 
the remedy, rather than delay it until a usurper, such as we 
now have at the head of the Government, forces a recognition 
of the danger. The greater our confidence in General Grant 



— 532 — 

the more anxious we should be to adopt an adequate remedy 
during" the life of his administration. We ought not to forg-et 
that Johnson succeeded Lincoln, and that we may need pro- 
tection from the successor to General Grant. 

THERS MUST BE ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO EXECUTIVE USUR- 
PATION. 

After the important questions g-rowing- out of the late 
rebellion are permanently settled, and the question of citizen- 
ship suffrage is disposed of by the adoption of the constitu- 
tional amendment now before us, I cannot affiliate with any 

PARTY WHICH, as AN ORGANIZATION, PROPOSES TO MAINTAIN 
THE KINGI.Y AND DANGEROUS PREROGATIVES NOW CONCEDED TO 

THE President by custom and usage. If we are to continue 
the presidential oflice at all, it must be simply as an executive, 
and as no part of the law-making- power. The duty of the 
President must be strictly limited to the execution of the 
law. The veto power, the appointing" power, and the power 
of removal at pleasure and without cause are all king"ly pre- 
rog'atives, and at war with the theory of a republican and 
democratic g"overnment. As the national life is born of the 
will of the people, so the legislative representation of that 
will must be the national Cong"ress. In all governments the 
ultimate power must somewhere have a lodgment. In a re- 
public it is safest in the hands of the people's representatives. 
The nearer this ultimate power is to the people the more 
directly and easily it can be molded and controlled by them. 
An absolute power in any g"overnment which is above 
and superior to the people is a despotism. It is a fallacy to 
assume that there must be lodged in some department of the 
government a despotic power such as the veto power. In 
any light in which I am able to view this great question I 
can see only danger in the constant encroachments and usur- 
pations of the executive and judicial departments of the 
government, and safety and security for the people only by 
the lodgment of the ultimate power of the nation in the 
national Congress. To the danger inseparable from the 
lodgment of such kingly prerogatives in the hands of any 
one man as are now conceded to the President may be added 



— 533 — 

the danger of our present system of making- nominations.' 
The caucus and convention system and the manner of elect- 
ing" the President and Vice-President by electors, or by the 
House of Representatives when the electors fail to make a 
choice, all tend to exclude the people from a direct voice in 
the government of the nation, and enable a few to control 
the government and administer it, not according to the will 
of the people, but as decreed by nominating conventions and 
by irresponsible bodies unknown to the Constitution. All 
attempts to maintain the domination of the executive over 
the legislative department of the government must be 
defeated, and all efforts to clothe the Executive with new 
prerogatives or an increase of his present overshadowing 
power, must be met by prompt, vigorous, and organized re- 
sistance; and to this great work I shall in the future direct 
whatever of political influence I may have. 

Th:B judiciat, amendment. 

Mr. Chairman, I now submit an amendment providing 
for the better organization of the Supreme Court, which the 
Clerk will please read. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Strike out section 1 of article 3, and insert the following: 
The judicial power of the United States shall be vested 
in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Con- 
gress may from time to time ordain and establish. The 
judges, both of the Supreme and district courts, shall hold 
their of&ces for twenty years: Provided, That no judge 
shall act as a member of the Supreme Court nor of any Dis- 
trict Court of the United States after he shall have reached 
the age of seventy years. After their appointment and 
qualification they shall be ineligible to any office under the 
National Government. They shall at stated times receive for 
their services a compensation which shall not be diminished 
during their continuance in office. After the expiration of 
the term of service of each judge of the Supreme or of any 
District Court of the United States, the Congress shall, by 
law, provide such annual compensation as they may deem 
proper for each retiring judge during life, which compensa- 
tion shall not be diminished. 

Mr. ASHI.EY, of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, next to the dan- 



~ 534 - 

g-er inseparable from the use and abuse of executive power is 
th3 dang-er to be apprehended from judicial usurpation and 
judicial corruption. The history of judicial usurpations in 
the United States is a history running- over many years of 
judicial "sapping and mining." The judicial power is all 
the more dangerous because ever silent and insidious. In all 
ages and countries its most diabolical crimes have been com- 
mitted in the sacred name of justice and of law. Jefferson was 
right when he declared that — 

" The germ of dissolution of our government was in the 
constitution of the Federal judiciary-, an irresponsible body 
(for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow), working like 
gravity by night and by da}', gaining a little to-day and a 
little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless steps over the 
field of jurisdiction." "The foundations are already deeply 
laid by their decisions for the annihilation of constitutional 
State rights, and the removal of ever}- check, ever}' counter- 
poise, to the engulfing power of which themselves are to 
make a sovereign part." "An opinion is huddled up in con- 
clave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unani- 
mous and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid 
associates by a crafty chief judge." 

"It has proved that the power of declaring- what the 
law is AD LIBITUM, by sapping and mining slj'ly, and without 
alarm, the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open 
force would not dare to attempt." 

I have no time at this late hour to go into a history of 
the usurpations of the Supreme and District Courts of the 
United States. Such a history would present a long and 
black catalogue of unjust and infamous decisions. The first 
speech which I made in this House was devoted to an exposi- 
tion of its betrayal of human rights and its shameless affirma- 
tion of the right of slavery. I have nothing to retract of 
what I then said of its indefensible subserviency to the slave 
barons and to the baneful spirit of party; nor can I modify, 
as I should be glad to do, what I then said of the undisguised 
personal and political ambition for the Presidenc}^ of some if 
not a majority of its members. 

Years before the Dred Scott decision was delivered an 
attempt was made to prepare the way for that usurpation, or 
any other which might be deemed for the interest of slavery, 
by a studied and labored effort on the part of the slave 



— 535 — 

barons and their northern allies to impress the country with 
a g-reater veneration for that " augfust tribunal" known as 
the Supreme Court than for any other department of the 
g-overument. 

Its decisions were declared to be "finalities," from which 
there was to be no appeal, and its immaculate wisdom and 
purity were everywhere the theme of an enthusastic partisan 
press and party leaders, who demanded that its decisions 
should be received as unquestioned law. Statutes were enacted 
which declared they were to be operative, provided they were 
in subordination to the Constitution as interpreted by a ma- 
jority of this "august tribunal," composed of nine men, of 
whom five were a majority. So persistently did political 
demagogues press this point upon the country that the mem- 
bers of the Supreme Court began to act as if they were in 
fact, an "august tribunal," endowed with a wisdom unknown 
to the rest of mankind, and that they had an intuitive knowl- 
edg"e of the Constitution unknown to any other body of men. 
Those who knew the court when the Dred Scott decision was 
pronounced, will not hesitate to admit that whatever knowl- 
edge of the Constitution a majority of them had, was probabl}^ 
"intuitive," and that their legal endowments were of a char- 
acter incomprehensible to the great body of intelligent men 
who read that decision. So thoroughly did a majority of this 
court believe in the infallibility of their assumed power, that 
they consulted with and gave directions for the g-uidance of 
their partisan friends, and were preparing to assume and to in- 
terpret without question, the Constitution, for both the execu- 
tive and legislative departments of the Government. Justice 
Wayne, of Georgia, than whom there was no purer or better 
man on the bench in his day, believed, and so expressed him- 
self to his friends, "that if the Supreme Court could be 
brought to make a unanimous decision in the Dred Scott case 
[in favor of slavery, of course], that it would settle that 
•question for all time to come." This was the kind of im- 
maculate judicial wisdom, to which the nation was called up- 
on to submit without question. 

It is now well known to all, that the Dred Scott decision 
was made on the demand of the slave barons. But for a 
supposed party necessity, there never would have been a Dred 



— 536 — 

Scott case before the court. It required years of unscrupu- 
lous partisan labor, to pack tbe court with men, who would 
consent to degrade the judicial office, by making" such an atro- 
cious decision. After the case had been finally argued and 
the court were ready to pronounce the required pro-slaver}'- 
judgment upon it, and had authorized Judge Nelson to pre- 
pare the opinion of the court, dismissing the case on the only 
point which the slave barons then desired to have passed up- 
on, namely, that Dred Scott being the descendant of an Afri- 
can slave could not become a citizen of the United States, and 
therefore could not bring a suit in the courts of the United 
States against a slave master, the court were brought to an 
unlooked-for point in the case by the announcement of Judge 
McLean that he should deliver a dissenting opinion, and re- 
view at length the status of the slave under the Constitution, 
thus going into the whole question of slaverv. 

It is conceded by all who are familiar with the inside 
history of this case, that but for the fact that there were men 
then upon the bench of the Supreme Court, as there are now, 
with a mania for the Presidency, which can only be given up 
at death, we should never have had the Dred Scott decision. 
Judge Mclycan, whose purity of life and great ability no man 
who knew him will question, had for years been an aspirant 
for the Presidency. He saw an opportunity to make polit- 
ical capital out of a general review of the slavery question, from 
a judicial standpoint, and when he announced his purpose to 
his associates on the bench, he caused a panic among them, 
such as does not often overtake that " august tribunal." It 
was on the eve of the presidential campaign for lS5b, and 
the pro-slavery party could not afford to have such a bomb- 
shell thrown into their camp. The court, therefore, or a ma- 
jority of it, reserved the decision of the question, and or- 
dered the case to be reargued in order to gain time and 
to await the result of the presidential election. They did 
this in order that they might know positively, whether thej' 
could rely on the executive arm of the Government, to enforce 
with the army and navy their contemplated usurpation. 

The points to be made in Judge McLean's dissen ing 
opinion were well known to his partisan friends; and the 
fact that he was to deliver such an opinion was publicly used 



— 537 — 

with a view to secure for him if possible, the Republican 
nomination at Philadelphia for the Presidency. The opin- 
ions of the majority of the court were also known to the par- 
tisan friends of the court. After the presidential election, 
the public mind was prepared for the forthcoming- decision 
by skillful manipulations, such as were never employed before. 
President Pierce in his last annual message apprised the 
country of the fact that this Dred Scott decision had been 
ag-reed upon, althoug-h at that time it had not been officially 
announced from the bench, and that the court " had finally de- 
termined the pending- question in every form in which it could 
arise." Mr. Buchanan in his inaugural address referred to 
the forthcoming Dred Scott decision in these words. 

To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I 
shall cheerfully submit, whatever it may be. 

These declarations of the outgoing and the incoming 
Chief Magistrates were demanded by the slave barons, so as 
to strengthen the purpose of the court, and to give official 
notice to all applicants for office under Mr. Buchanan, that 
they must endorse one of the most startling and indefensible 
decisions ever delivered by any judicial tribunal in the world, 
before their claims for official positions could even have a 
hearing before the Executive. So successful did the plotters 
work, that the partisans of the court succeeded in many of 
the free States in procuring an endorsement by their party 
State conventions of this monstrous decision. Then the 
office-seekers of the nation, with an alacrity and baseness, 
which no language can describe, bowed down in submission 
before the slave barons, kissed the hands that smote them, 
and accepted menial positions as a reward for their infamy. 
All this because the Supreme Court had been molded into a 
political tribunal, and had upon its bench political partisans 
and aspirants for the Presidency. I wish the court were 
altogether what it ought to be now. I regret as much as. 
any man that it is not. I need not dwell upon the painful 
exhibitions which may be witnessed any day gentlemen will 
take the trouble to go into the room of the Supreme Court. 
Theie they will find men upon the bench, passing upon 
questiona of the greatest magnitude, who are entirely unfit 



— 538- 

for the discharge of such responsible and important duties as 
are almost daily devolving- upon them. 

It is painful for me to sa}' this, and I do so only because I 
believe it to be an imperative duty. It is proper that the peo- 
ple should know the facts, so they may demand of their 
representatives a remedy for the admitted defect in our judi- 
cial system. I presume the members of the present court are 
substantially like their predecessors, no better, and I hope no 
worse. 

It is well known that for some time before Judg^e 
McLean's death, his associates on the bench, at the request of 
friends, relieved him from all responsible labor in the prepara- 
tion of opinions. Thoug-h sleeping- upon the bench during" 
the greater part of the time the court was in session, and 
dying with age, he was almost daily voting upon and aiding 
to decide questions of the gravest character, and even then 
was not without hope of ultimately reaching the Presidency. 

Mr. Chairman, it is a sad sight to see such a body as the 
Supreme Court ought to be, with one-third op its members 

SLEEPING UPON THE BENCH AND DYING WITH AGE, AND ONE- 
THIRD OR MORE CRAZED WITH THE GLITTER OF THE PRESIDENCY. 

I need not say how utterly this condition of body and mind 
unfits men for the proper discharge of the judicial office. If 
there is one body of men more than another in this country 
who ought to be financially removed from temptation, and 
intellectually to be clear and unclouded, as well as free from 
all partisan ambition, it is the members of the Supreme 
Court. 

Our experience with this branch of the government has 
been a sad one, I will not attempt to go into a history of its 
usurpations, its perversion of law, its criminal injustice, its 
political chicanery. It would emplo}' more than the entire 
time allowed me, and then I could not present one-half of the 
enormities of which it has been guilty. The people have 
been compelled more than once to disregard and reverse its 
infamous and unjust decisions, and they must be prepared to 
do so again. They were not long in comprehending the ex- 
tent of the danger in the Dred Scott usurpation. They knew 
that the power which had the conceded right to pass without 
appeal on the constitutionality of the nation's laws would 



— 539 — 

soon become the nation's master. If this doctrine could 
liave obtained, the sovereig-nt}- of the nation would, sooner 
or later, have been usurped by the national judiciary. Con- 
gress mig-ht have enacted laws, but the court would have 
annulled them at pleasure. Thanks to the intellig-ence and 
virtue of the people, it required but few 3'ears to reverse the 
Dred Scott decision and break in pieces the ebon}' image of 
slavery which this ' ' august tribunal " had set up, and demand- 
ed that the nation should worship. The people of this country 
could not be made to cry out, great is the Diana of slavery; 
immaculate and wise is this " august tribunal;" its interpre- 
tation of the Constitution shall be a "finality," "binding- 
upon the executive and legislative departments of the gov- 
ernment and all the of&cers and agents thereof." 

This attempted usurpation on the part of the court 
not only failed, but ignominiously failed, and the individual 
members of the court were arraigned at the bar of public 
opinion, and put into history with the men, who in all ages 
have disgraced and dishonored the judicial office. If the 
proposition which I have made, had from the org-anization 
of the g-overnment been a part of the Constitution, every 
man will concede that no such decision as the Dred Scott 
decision would ever have been made. Let us, then, provide 
for such a reorganization of the Supreme and District Courts 
of the United States as experience teaches to be necessary. 
Let us also restrict their jurisdiction to the fewest possible 
questions consistent with the administration of the National 
Government, and we may hope to see the organization of a 
judicial tribunal which shall command the respect of all 
Americans, and also the respect of intelligent men through- 
out the world. 

^HE MINORITY MUST HAVE PROPORTION AX, PERSONAL REPRE- 
SENTATION IN THE GOVERNMENT. 

Mr. Chairman, the proposition which I now present is, in 
my opinion, one of more importance to the future peace and 
unity of this nation than any new proposition which has 
ever been suggested, involving* as it does the whole question 
of representative government, and presenting the question of 



— 540— 

the rig-ht of minorities to proportional representation in the 
g"overnment equal to their numerical streng-tli at each elec- 
tion. The Clerk will please read. 
The Clerk read as follows: 



ARTICLK — . 

In the election of Representatives to the Congress of 
the United States, whenever more than one Representative 
is to be elected from a State, Cong-ress shall by law desig-nate 
the manner in which such additional Representatives shall be 
chosen, and shall provide for securing* to the qualified elec- 
tors in such State proportional personal representation in 
Cong-ress as near as may be. 

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, under our S3''S- 
tem constituencies are often compelled to intrust to repre- 
sentatives, especially to Senators, the settlement of questions 
of vast importance which have arisen after their election. 
Unless some system can be devised by which the opinions of 
a constituency can be obtained on an}^ new and important 
question which ma}' have arisen after an election of a Sen- 
ator or Representative, the people must continue to intrust, 
as now, the settlement of such questions to men over whom 
they can have no control until the next reg"ular election. 
The number of Senators and Representatives who have served 
in Cong-ress since I came into public life, and have openly 
and defiantly betrayed or misrepresented the constituencies 
which elected them, is far greater than isg-enerally supposed, 
and until the time came to fill their places by a new election 
such constituencies have been powerless in the presence of 
their own chosen servants. It will be conceded by all that if 
the voice of betrayed or misrepresented constituencies could 
have been authoritatively heard, g-reat questions which have 
been passed upon within the memory of us all, would have been 
disposed of otherwise than as they have been, and questions 
which have not 3'ct been acted upon, would be settled other- 
wise than as they will be. 

If in the past quarter of a century, the voice of every con- 
stituenc}' in the nation could have been authoritatively col- 
lected, and their will obeyed, there would have been less of 



— 541 — 

compromising-, less of patchwork in leg-islation, less defiance 
on the part of Senators and Representatives, and fewer be- 
trayals of constituencies, either by Presidents, Cabinet Min- 
isters or others. The people, however, are so wedded to our 
present system of electing" Presidents and Senators and Rep- 
resentatives, that it is hardly probable that they can now 
be moved to adopt a plan so advanced as that which de- 
mands THE RIGHT OP EVERY CONSTITUENCY, AT AX,!, TIMES TO 
INSTRUCT OR RECAI^I, THEIR PUBLIC SERVANTS AND SUBSTITUTE 

OTHERS IN THEIR STEAD. It therefore becomes all the more 
importrjit, that a system should be adopted which will secure 
to every elector, the right to vote for such persons as in his 
judgment will best represent his opinions on the leading 
questions of the day, and to whose judgment and fidelity he 
is willing to intrust the disposition of all new questions which 
may arise, and on which, at the time of voting, he can have 
formed no opinions. 

Mr. Chairman, in submitting this proposition, the object 
I have in view is to secure to every elector, no matter where 
he may reside in a State, the right to vote for any citizen in 
his State, whom he may prefer to represent him in 
Congress, so that the free exercise of his individual judgment 
shall not be restricted to the locality of his residence, or to 
accepting a candidate imposed upon him by local caucuses 
and local conventions. Experience, I think, has demonstrated 
the necessity of devising some improvement in our electoral 
system. We must adopt a system, not oney for nominat- 
ing AND ELECTING THE PRESIDENT BY A DIRECT VOTE OE THE 
PEOPLE BY BALLOT, WITHOUT THE INTERVENTION OP CAUCUSES 
AND CONVENTIONS AND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS, but we mUSt 

inaugurate a system for electing Senators and Representa- 
tives in Congress and for State Legislatures, which will se- 
cure a more equitable representation and give greater protec- 
tion to the interests and rights of minorities. The despotism 
and injustice of the majority has been felt with fearful power 
in this nation. For more than three-quarters of a century in 
the name of Christianity and of liberty the majority have en- 
slaved millions of men. During all that time demagogues 

CLAMORED FOR THE RIGHT OP THE MAJORITY TO ENACT VIL- 
LAINY INTO LAW. Compromising with slavery was then re- 



— 54: — 

garded as the highest statesmanship. The right of the mi- 
nority to a voice in the Government or even to a hearing- was 
imperiously denied, xind bars and bolts and dung-eons, mob 
law and social and political ostracism was the lot of those 
who in the land of Washington came pleading for the liberty 
of the human race. Experience warns us of the fatal conse- 
quences of such injustice and of all compromises with wrong 
and of all temporary' and superficial legislation. Put the 
propositions which I have made into the Constitution, and 
they will become the crowning glory of our fundamental law. 
"We shall thus abolish the kingly prerogatives of the Presi- 
dent, and recognize the supremacy of the people by making 
it the imperative duty of the Government to see that the 
rights of minorities are respected and protected. " The office 
of government," says one of the ablest women of America, 
"is to represent the rights of all, not the will of all." 

True representation is the corner-stone of the republic; 
without it democracy surrenders to the minority, and a ruling 
minority in any government will always become an aristoc- 
racy. Democracy cannot be maintained by any people simply 
by declaring for a government of the majority, unless it 
recognizes the divine law, which commands all to "do unto 
others as they would that others should do unto them.*' The 
" g-olden rule" is the foundation-stone of true democracy, 
and the nation which builds upon any other foundation, 
though by the consent of the majority, builds upon the sand. 
What I want to secure in the administration of the govern- 
ment is not the absolute domination of the majority, but to 
have the enlightened "will of the majority constituted 
guardian of the rights of all." My prKPOSE is to so keok- 
GANizB THE Government that it shali, kecognize the 

DIVINE LAW OF liberty AND JUSTICE, AND BE ADMINISTERED 
BY THE CONSENT OF ALL, IN THE INTEREST OF ALL, AND WITH 

representation for ALL. This cannot be done by concen- 
trating so much power in the hands of the President or in 
the national judiciary; nor can it be done by refusing to 
recognize the right of minorities to proportional represen- 
tation in the State legislatures and in the national Congress. 
The system which I wish to see inaugurated is based upon the 
fundamental idea that every legislative body should reflect 



— 543 — 

the sentiments and convictions of the whole people which it 
is chosen to represent. Adopt this plan, and every constit- 
uency sufficiently numerous in a State to entitle them to 
more than one Representative in Cong-ress or to any number 
in a State leg-islature, can secure such Representatives. 

Under our present system t«he minority in half the States 
are often without a voice in the National Government. The 
legislative power of Ohio to-day is in the hands of the 
minority of the electors of that State. This could never 
happen under the system which I hope some da.j to see 
adopted, not only by the States, but by the National Govern- 
ment. The system so ably presented by Mr. Hare, of Great 
Britain, commends itself to me because of its admirable sim- 
plicity and its absolute security to the interests and rights of 
minorities. It would be mathematically impossible under that 
system for the minority in any State to obtain control of its 
legislature, or the minority of the nation to obtain a majority 
in Cong-ress, while at the same time it would secure to minori- 
ties a just representation in proportion to the number of votes 
which they polled at each election. 

I have not time to dwell, as I should be glad to do, at 
greater length upon the inestimable value of this most ad- 
mirable system; a system which has the approval of John 
Stuart Mill and many of the ablest statesmen of Europe and 
America. "With some modifications it could be adopted by 
every State. But if custom and the ambition of local party 
leaders render the adoption of Mr. Hare's plan impossible, I 
am confident that a discussion of the question of minority 
representation which it presents will result in an amendment 
to our present indefensible system. For the sake of illustra- 
tion, let me state the manner in which the voters of Ohio 
are clothed in unequal political power. I do not now speak 
of the entire disfranchisement of minorities, which is done 
in almost every State by gerrymandering, but the unequal 
apportionment of States into senatorial and legislative dis- 
tricts, as in Maryland and Delaware. 

In addition to this I refer to the great power which in 
certain localities in many States is conferred upon one voter 
and denied to another. For instance, in Hamilton county, 
in my State, each elector votes for nine representatives and 



— 544 — 

three senators to the State legislature, making- twelve mem- 
bers of the State legislature for whom one elector votes on 
one ticket. 

In the county in which I reside, and indeed in a majority 
of the counties in the State, they elect but one member of 
the House and one senator in each district, so that each elec- 
tor outside of Hamilton county can vote for but one represen- 
tative and one senator to the State legislature, except in such 
3'ears as a few of the districts or counties have one additional 
senator or representative, which we call "a float." Every 
voter, therefore, in Hamilton count}^ has a large increase of 
political power over a voter in Lucas in the choice of mem- 
bers of the State legislature. This inequality and injustice, 
all will agree, ought not to be maintained. The political 
power of the State as represented by the number of votes 
cast by each party can be fairly distributed and the minority 
secured its proportional representation without an entire 
abandonment of the district S3'stem to which custom and the 
interests of local politicians so much attach us. 

To illustrate, suppose we should alter our State consti- 
tution in Ohio so that the Senate should be composed of 
fortv-eight members and the House of ninetj'-six members, 
and that in making the apportionment in the constitution as 
it is now the State should be divided into eleven senatorial 
and twenty-two representative districts, electing four sena- 
tors and four representatives in each district, each senatorial 
district being divided into two representative districts; and 
that the remaining four senators and eight representatives 
should be elected as we now elect floats, except that they be 
elected for the State at large. This would place every voter 
in the State on an equal footing as to the number of members 
of the State legislature for whom he would be permitted to 
vote. 

If, after such an appointment the electors were permitted 
— as I think they ought to be — to adopt the cumulative and 
alternate system of voting, the minority if they numbered a 
fraction above one-fourth of the voters in any district could 
secure one senator and representative, or if they numbered 
a fraction above one-eighth of the voters in the State they 



— 545 — 

could secure one senator and two representatives for the State 
at large. 

If the electors in any district were dissatisfied, as they 
often are with one or more of the candidates nominated by 
their party, they ought to be permitted to cumulate and alter- 
nate their votes on any one or more candidates, either for the 
State at large or in their own district, designating on their 
ballots their first, second, third and fourth choice, so that 
their votes should not be lost by a larger number being cast 
for any one candidate than would elect him, or for a candi- 
date who would not receive enough to elect him. Under this 
system each party would be compelled to present its best and 
ablest men or suffer defeat. Each elector having the right of 
alternate and cumulative voting, he could vote for any one or 
more of the candidates, either for the State at large or in his 
district, and would do so rather than vote for an objection- 
able and unworthy man of his party merely because he was 
the caucus nominee, if in doing so he thereby increased the 
vote of his favorite candidate. 

Let me illustrate this point, so that I shall not be misun- 
derstood. I would provide that each elector should vote one 
ballot. On'that ballot he should name his choice for State and 
county officers as now. State and county officers being minis- 
terial and not legislative, and each voter being entitled to 
vote for but one of such officers, the right of alternate and 
cumulative voting cannot be provided for. Only where the 
elector has the right to vote for two or more candidates for 
the same office — like members of the legislature or Congress 
— can the system of cumulative and alternative voting be ap- 
plied. For example, every State has but one governor, and 
every county but one clerk of the court, and each elector 
must vote for but one, if he votes at all. Hence this system 
which I propose recognizes the supremacy of the legislative de- 
partment in the Government, and provides for the proportional 
representation of the minority, so that that minority may have 
a voice in prescribing by law the mode and manner in which 
all ministerial officers of the Government shall discharge the 
powers and duties of their respective offices. If any system 

35 



— 546 — 

can be devised which will give more absolute power to the 
people I am for it. 

In voting- under this system the ballots would be made 
up substantially as follows: 

Republican State Ticket. 



For Governor, 
For Judg-e Supreme Court, 

For Secretary of State, 

For Attorney General, 

For Board Public Works, 
For School Commissioner, 



County Ticket. 
For Auditor, 

For County Clerk, 

For Probate Judg-e, 

For Sheriff, 

For Commissioner, 



— 547 — 

Legislative Ticket. 
For Senators — State at Larg-e, 

1. — , 

2. , 

3. , 

4. 



For Mepresentatives — State at Large, 



3. 

4. 
S. 
6. 
7. 



For Senators Tenth District, composed of the Counties of- 



3. 
4. 



For Mepresentatives Twentieth District, composed of the 
Counties of , 



1. 

2. 
3. 
4. 



— 548 — 

Congressional Ticket — For Representatives in Congress^ 
State at Large, 

1. , 

2. — - — , 

3. 

For Representatives in Congress, Fourth District, composed 
of the Counties of — , 

1. , 

2. - , 

3. , 

4. 

In electing- Representatives to Congress I have provided 
that the same system should be adopted which I have sug- 
gested for electing members of State legislatures. Every 
State entitled to less than eight Representatives in Congress 
should elect them on one ticket for the State at large. In 
each State entitled to eight members and over, the number to 
which they are entitled should be divided by four, and the 
State apportioned into as many districts as there are products 
of such division, the additional number of members to which 
they are entitled, if there be an}-, to be elected for the State 
at large, as General Logan is now elected by the State of 
Illinois. Thus in Ohio we should have, until a new appor- 
tionment was made, four congressional districts, in each of 
which four Representatives to Congress would be elect- 
ed and the remaining three members would be elected 
by the State at large. Under this system every voter in 
Ohio would vote for seven Representatives in Congress; or, 
if he preferred to do so, he could, by alternative and cumula- 
tive voting, give his seven votes to any one candidate. Thus 
a minority in Ohio, if they numbered a fraction above one- 
seventh of the voters of a State, by uniting on one candidate, 



— 549 — 

could secure one Representative in Congress, and in no event 
could they elect a greater number of Representatives than 
they would be entitled to by the number of votes which they 
were able to cast. 

If it be sug-g-ested that the electors in States having- but 
one or two Representatives would not have equal political 
power with electors in the larg^er States, I answer that they 
are more than compensated by the two Senators which repre- 
sent a small population in the Senate. It requires no arg-u- 
ment to show that this system would do much to destroy the 
baneful effects of party spirit; that it would check the use of 
money at elections, and prevent the g^reat frauds which are 
yearly becoming* more and more alarming". In addition to 
this, it would tend to secure" the services of the ablest men 
in Cong"ress and in State leg-islatures. The men who were 
nominated and elected to the Senate and House for a State at 
large, as a rule, would be the ablest men each party could 
select in the State. So, also, of Representatives to Congress; 
the people of the whole State having a right to vote for one, 
or two, or three Representatives to Congress for the State at 
large would be careful to select gentlemen of well-known abili- 
ty and fidelity. In this way able and faithful and experienced 
men would be retained in public life, because local factions 
and the local ambitions of aspirants could not be so success- 
fully used as now to defeat them. More would be expected 
of a man who was nominated and elected to the legislature 
for the State at large than of a local candidate from almost 
any county, and so of a man nominated and elected by a State 
at large as a Representative to the Congress of the nation. 

This plan is so just and fair that it must sooner or later 
commend itself to the great body of thinking men in the 
country. Each voter should have the right to say on his bal- 
lot, "I desire to be represented by the candidate whose name 
I have placed opposite No. 1. I therefore cast all my votes 
for him. If he should obtain more than the quota of votes 
necessary to elect him, or if he should fail to obtain a suffi- 
cient number, and thus cannot become my Representative, I 
direct that my vote be transferred to the candidate which I 
have designated as No. 2, he being my second choice;" and so 



— 550 — 

on, under the same conditions, to the number of candidates 
for whom each elector is entitled to vote. 

If the system of electing- the President and Vice-Presi- 
dent by the appointment of electoral colleg-es is to be main- 
tained, then they ought to be elected by districts and States 
as I suggest in case of Congressmen, and not in single dis- 
tricts as proposed by the constitutional amendment which has 
just passed the Senate and is now on our table. One of the 
amendments which I have suggested to that amendment is in 
my opinion far preferable, and 3'et I do not intend to vote for 
it, even if adopted as an amendment to the Senate proposi- 
tion; I mean the amendment which I offered a day or two ago, 
which provides for the appointment of electors of President 
and Vice-President by the legislatures to represent the will of 
the voters as expressed by them at the general election. I 
would be very glad, however, to have the opportunit}- of 
voting for the proposition which I made at the last session 
and again at this, which provides for the nomination and 

ELECTION OP THE PRESIDENT BY A DIRECT VOTE OF THE PEOPLE 
BY BALLOT. If WE ARE TO HAVE A PRESIDENT AT ALL, I WANT 
HIM ELECTED DIRECTLY BY THE QUALIFIED VOTERS OF THE NA- 
TION. I am opposed to the single district plan, because it 
does not secure an equitable representation to the voters of 
the nation. Under that system a minorit}- of the whole -peo' 
pie have elected a President and would be able to do so again. 
It is true, as my friend [Mr. Williams, of Indiana] suggests, 
that the minority- have and may again elect the President un- 
der our present system. I prefer, however, to retain that 
system, imperfect as all admit it to be, until we can adopt a 
better one. The scene which transpired in this House on 
"Wednesday, when counting the electoral vote, ought to be a 
warning to the statesmen of the nation. It developed in a 
practical manner the weak and dangerous point in our system 
of electing the President. If the rejection of the vote of a 
State by Congress should at any time happen to change the 
result of a presidential election the consequences would be 
fearful. 

Suppose, when counting the vote the other day, there 
bad been three or more candidates for President (as there have 
been several times), and that each candidate had received a. 



— 551 — 

sufficient number of electoral votes to have defeated an elec- 
tion by the electoral colleg-e, and the friends of the defeated 
candidates had united and thrown out the vote of one or 
more States, so that it would defeat the person havino- a ma- 
jority of all the certified votes returned, and thus have 
defeated an election by the Electoral Colleg-e and broug-ht 
the election into this House. Can any man contemplate such 
a conting-ency without alarm? In a full House of 233 mem- 
bers, thirty-eig-ht men from the small States, by uniting-, 
could elect the President, and, if they saw fit to do so, they 
could select of the three candidates before the House the 
person having- the smallest number of electoral votes. Do 
g-entlemen suppose the people of the country would submit 
to such injustice without a fearful strug-g-le? Of course no 
sane man pretends to defend a system which invites such 
conspiracies, and which makes such scenes as we witnessed 
last Wednesday possible when counting- the electoral vote. 
Let any Congress assume to throw out votes enoug-h to 
chang-e the result of a presidential election, and they will 
inaugurate revolution. 

I am asked by g-entlemen around me if I would sit here and 
count the vote of a State if the certificate was a f org-ery, or if 
the election in the State had been carried by force or fraud. 
I answer certainly not. If compelled to vote, I must vote for 
what I believe to be rig-ht and let consequences take care of 
themselves; but if I voted to reject one or more States, and 
their rejection chang-ed the result of the election, I would be 
voting- for that which would inaugurate revolution. And I 
will say, in passing-, that no question of contest as to the 
validity of the presidential election should ever be permitted 
to come before Congress. If frauds are committed or force is 
employed in any State, the question should be settled in the 
District Courts of the United States for the district in which 
the fraud or force was alleg-ed to have been practiced. The 
District Courts in each State are the courts before which such 
questions should be determined. The question of the valid it}' 
of any election ];eing thus adjudicated and passed upon by a 
national judicial tribunal, in the State where the alleg-ed 
frauds were charged, Cong-ress would have no other dutv to 



— 552 — 

perform than to count the vote as returned, and officially pro- 
claim the result. 

But, Mr. Chairman, all this is a digression into which I 
have been drawn by the sug"g"estions and questions of gentle- 
men around me. Let me now go back to the question of 
representation which I was discussing. I was speaking of 
the unfairness of the plan of electing presidential electors in 
a single congressional or electoral district. There is hardly 
a State in the Union which elects four or more representa- 
tives to Congress in which the minority party could not, if 
they had a majorit}^ in their State legislatures (as the Demo- 
cratic part}' have to-day in Ohio, and the Republican party 
in New York), so gerrymander the State into electoral dis- 
tricts as to secure a majority of presidential electors in the 
State to the candidate of their party. If electors should be 
appointed as I propose Representatives in Congress shall be 
elected, a proportional representation would be secured to the 
minority in each State in exact proportion to the number of 
votes cast by each party, and all motive for gerrymandering 
would be removed. If the single district system should pre- 
A-ail, the Republican party, having a majority in the legisla- 
ture of New York, could, and probably would, so district the 
State as to secure a majority of the electors of President and 
Vice-President to their part}' candidates, although the State 
should go largely Democratic. The Democratic party in 
Ohio could so district the State as to secure a majority of the 
presidential electors to the candidate of their party, although 
the State might be carried largely by the Republican party. 
Of course, such a plan is entirely indefensible. The fact 
that Mr. Lincoln and General Grant received a larger number 
of electoral votes than the Republican party carried congres- 
sional districts, including the senatorial electors, is no argu- 
ment in favor of the district system. No system is defensible 
which defeats the will of the majority, or which fails to se- 
cure to the electors of the entire nation proportional repre- 
sentation. No man who has given this subject proper reflec- 
tion will claim that the electors of the nation have ever had 
their proportional representation in the Electoral College for 
the choice of President and Vice-President from the organiza- 
tion of the Government to this hour. The Republican represen- 



— 553 — 

tation in tliis House for the past elg-lit years has been out of 
all proportion to the vote cast for that party, as everybody 
admits. In the Senate the inequality and injustice to the 
minority has been far g-reater. In 1824 Jackson had a larg-er 
popular vote than both Adams and Crawford combined, yet 
they secured 26 more electoral votes than Jackson, which car- 
ried the election into the House of Representatives, where 
Jackson was defeated. At that election Jackson had 99 votes, 
Adams 84, and Crawford 41. Of course all remember that 
Mr. Adams was elected by the House of Representatives. 

In 1832 Jackson was elected over Clay, having- a majority 
of the popular vote, as also a majority of the Electoral Col- 
leg-e. But if any one will divide the total vote by the num- 
ber of electors, he will find that Clay, who only secured 49 
electors, oug-ht to have had 119, making- a difference of 70 
votes, and double that number as between Jackson and Clay^ 
as the 70 were taken from Clay and g-iven to Jackson. In 
1852, the candidates were Pierce, Scott and Hale, and the 
popular vote and the number of electors which each received 
was as follows (this statement also shows the ratio for each 
elector chosen): 

PRESIDENTIAI. EI.ECTION, 1852. 

Popular Vote. Electors. Ratios. 

Pierce 1,585,545 254 6,242 

Scott 1,383,537 42 32,846 

Hale 157,296 — — 



3,126,378 296 

Pierce had 254 votes, Scott 42 votes and Hale none. The 
injustice of this must be very apparent to every one. Divide 
the whole vote, 3,126,378, by 296, the whole number of elec- 
tors, and the ratio necessary to elect one elector at that elec- 
tion was 10,562 votes, and yet the Pierce electors were elected 
by a ratio not exceeding- 6,242, while the ratio for the Scott 
electors was 32,846, or more than five times the number required 
to elect the Pierce electors, while Hale, with 157,296 votes, 
did not secure one eleptoral vote. If the vote had been equi- 



— 554 — 

tably divided, as I propose, Pierce would have had 150 votes, 
Scott 131, and Hale 15 votes. Pierce having- a majority of 
the popular vote over both Scott and Hale would, of course, 
have a majority over both of the electoral votes, and would 
have been the President. The inequality and injustice to the 
electors in 1860 is so g-laring- that I desire to call special at- 
terition to it: 

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 1860. 

Popular Vote. Electors. Ratios. 

Lincoln 1,866,452 180 10,369 

Doug-las 1,375,157 12 114,596 

Breckinridg-e . . . 847,953 72 11,777 

Bell 590,631 39 15,144 



4,680,193 303 

Mr. Lincoln did not receive a majority of the popular 
vote, yet he had a large majority of the electoral vote. Doug"- 
las had but 12 electoral votes, with 1,375,157 votes, while 
Breckinridg-e and Bell tog-ether had 111 electoral votes, al- 
thoug-h their combined popular vote was less than 64,000 
more than the popular vote for Doug-las. Each of Doug-las's 
electors had 114,596 votes, while each of Mr. Lincoln's elec- 
tors had but 10,369 votes. If the electors had been appor- 
tioned according- to the popular vote, Lincoln would have had 
121 electors, Doug-las 89, Breckinridge 55, and Bell 38. 

At the election for 1864 the vote was for — 

Popular Vote. Electors. Ratios. 

Lincoln 2,223,035 213 10,436 

McClellan 1,811,754 21 86,274 . 

The mean ratio is 17,224 for an elector; Lincoln there- 
fore oug-ht to have had but 129 electoral votes, and General 
McClellan should have had 105 electoral votes. 

ELECTION FOR PRESIDENT IN 1868. 



Grant 3,016,353 

Seymour 2,706,631 



Electors. 


Ratios. 


214 


14,090 


. 80 


33,832 



300- 



The mean ratio at this election is 19,499. This would 
liave g-iven General Grant 155 electors, Seymour 139 electors. 

With these facts before us, the injustice and dang-er of 
■our present system must be apparent to all. Under it the 
minority have and may ag-ain elect the President. The same 
inequality and injustice will be seen if the returns for the 
election of members of this House are examined. If the elec- 
tors who voted for Grant and Seymour were equitably repre- 
sented in the next House, the Republican majority would be 
far less than it will be. For these reasons I oppose the 
proposition to elect the President by appointing- presidential 
electors in each State by single districts. If this system 
should prevail the motiveforg-errymandering- would increase, 
and the leg-islatures of the several States might provide, as 
^as done in Maryland, I believe, in 1824, when the}^ provided 
that the senatorial electors for that State should be elected 
in the third and fourth cong-ressional districts. The legisla- 
ture of Ohio, if Democratic as now, could provide that the 
two senatorial electors should be elected in the two strong-est 
Democratic districts in the State; and the Republican leg-is- 
lature of New York could provide that her senatorial electors 
should be elected in the cong-ressional districts in which her 
Senators actually resided. Any system which encourag-es the 
perpetration of such frauds upon electors must be met with 
prompt and unyielding- opposition. If, as I have said, the 
Electoral Colleg-e system is to be maintained, then I feel war- 
ranted in saying- that the statesmen of the country will prefer 
the adoption of some plan which will secure to the 
electors of each State an equitable representation in the 
Electoral College. This cannot be done by electing them in 
single districts, nor as now by the State at large. 

It is not necessary for me to repeat what I have hereto- 
fore said in this House and elsewhere, that I am utterly op- 
posed to the present mode of electing the President, either b}' 
electoral colleges or by the House of Representatives. The 
honest and fair way is the one which is easiest and freest 
from complications, and that is to nominate the several can. 
•didates for President under the safeguards and protection of 
law, and elect by a direct vote of the qualified electors of the 
entire nation by ballot. 



— 556 — 

jSIr. Cliairman, I desire to see Mr. Hare's S5^stem adopted 
in this country, because I believe it to be the most philosoph- 
ical ever presented for securing" an equitable division of polit- 
ical power in a republican commonwealth. John Stuart Mill,, 
in his work on representative government, says: 

"Of all modes in which the national representation can 
possibly be constituted, this one affords the best security for 
the intellectual qualifications desirable in a representative. 
At present, by universal admission, it is becoming" more and 
more difficult for any one who has only talents and character 
to gain admission to the House of Commons. The only per- 
sons who can get elected are those who possess local influence 
or make their way by lavish expenditure. 

"In no other way which it seems possible to suggest 
would Parliament be so certain of containing the very elite 
of the countr3\ Not solely through the votes of minorities 
would this system raise the intellectual standard of the House 
of Commons. Majorities would be compelled to look out for 
members of much higher calibre. "When the individuals com- 
posing the majorities would no longer be reduced to Hobson's 
choice of either voting for the person brought forward by the 
local leaders or not voting at all, when the nominee of the 
leaders would have to encounter not only the candidate of the 
minority, but of all the men of established reputations in the 
country who were willing to serve, it would be impossible 
any longer to foist upon the electors the first person who pre- 
sents himself with the catchwords of the party in his mouth, 
and ;^3,000 or ;^4,000 in his pockets." 

Mr. Chairman, nothing has been more successfully used 
in this country by small demagogues to defeat able represen- 
tative men than the clamor of the spoils-hunter for "available 
candidates " and for "rotation in office." These men demand 
party success at whatever cost of manhood or consistency. 
With this cr}', party discipline has been successfully invoked, 
and constituencies have voted to place men in office who were 
known by them to be intellectually and morally unfit for any 
honorable public position. 

Is the candidate ' ' available? " asks the time-server. If so, 
that is enough. No spoils-hunter is so indiscreet as to in- 
quire about the character or abilit}^ of his candidate. Every 
person of experience knows that as a rule the " available 
man " has no individuality, and that political availability is 
everywhere a synonym for political mediocrity, and that 



-557 — 

nothing- so delig-hts the heart of respectable conservatism as 
stupid mediocrity. 

Let any man make careful inquiry into the character of 
all the men who for the past quarter of a century have been 
members of this House, and he will find, to speak within 
bounds, that more than one-third of the entire number have 
been, as Mr. Benton says, "mere birds of passage," whose 
entrance here was often as g^reat an astonishment to them- 
selves as it was to the statesmen of the nation. He will also 
find that a larg-e proportion of these " birds of passage " came 
Tiere by the force and power of party machinery and the co- 
operation of the Executive, who desired the presence of such 
men that they might do his bidding", after which, by common 
consent they were to be "rotated out," and receive as a reward 
for their fidelity to the " powers that be " some petty of&ce; or 
he will find that they were nominated and elected because 
they were the representatives of money-bags rather than the 
representatives of ideas, or that they were political nonde- 
scripts, without intellectual ability enough to form or express 
one distinct political idea, but with low cunning enough to 
follow the programme prescribed for them by wily party 
manag-ers. 

I am sure no man who has looked into our political his- 
tory will say that I overdraw the picture. Of course all 
know that as a class these are the men who have always 
deceived or betrayed constituencies; and yet in every con- 
g-ressional district in the United States where the party 
majority is small and the district doubtful, stupidity with 
money can win the day at the next election, against brains 
with ideas. In Great Britain, at the late election, John Stuart 
Mill, one of the ablest and most philosophical statesmen of 
that country, was defeated by a mere popinjay, whose only 
recommendation for a seat in Parliament was his money- 
bag's. Mill was known and respected in all parts of the civil- 
ized world, while the man who defeated him was not known 
beyond the circle of the clique which nominated him, and 
undoubtedly never would have been but for his mone3\ 

In this country money is being- successfully employed 
more and more every year to elect "political nondescripts" 
to Congress. The system I propose will, if adopted, secure 



— 558 — 

the election of the ablest men in the nation and banish the 
baneful spirit of partisan bigfotry. 

Mr. Chairman, defective as our representative system is 
admitted to be, Cind faithless as have been many of the 
people's chosen servants, I can testif}' to the fact that^ 
thoug-h this is called a money-lovinsf and a money-worship- 
ping- ag-e, I have been associated here in the past ten years 
with men in the administration of the g-overnment, who 
believed in something- higher than the g-od of Mammon. 

Since the war of the rebellion I have been associated 
with a party a majority of whose members have been free 
from all schemes of public plunder or peculation; a majority 
of whom have also been as true as the needle to the pole in 
their defense of human rig"hts. Beset as they were on every 
hand by apostasy and treason, by temptation and the allure- 
ments of power, they have kept the faith and made a record 
which will g-row bright with time. 

A great battle has been fought and a complete victory 
won for the establishment of a real republic. In this g-rand 
battle soldier and civilian alike have participated, and are 
entitled to equal honor. The one was a necessity to the 
other. "Without the unselfish heroism of the soldier, and the 
fidelity of Abraham Lincoln, and his faithful co-workers in 
the national Cong-ress, defeat would have been inevitable. 

During- these memorable years I count it a great honor 
to have been intimately associated with some of the grandest 
men who ever represented an}^ people. To their fidelity and 
to the heroism of the soldier we owe our redemption as a 
nation. To this same class of men we shall owe in the 
future our progressive development as a people in moral 
power and material g-randeur. Much has been accomplished; 
much also remains to be accomplished. The history of the 
past is not without its encouragements. There is a place for 
all, and labor for all. Let no effort be relaxed, and let no 
man g-row weary or turn back in despair. He who battles 
unselfishly for the right, ever and alwa3's g-rows stronger and 
strong-er. To-day the nation begins to realize that the 
divine command embodied in the " g-olden rule," and coming- 
to us down the centuries, is breathing- its spirit into the 
hearts of millions, quickening- the faith and strengthening 



— 559 — 

the heroic purpose of every noble man and woman. With 
this quickening" faith the old anti-slavery g-uard went forth 
strong" in heart and brave in purpose, to battle for the rights 
of mankind. In that g"reat conflict they were as true as the 
law of g-ravitation, and labored long" and faithfully for the 
reorganization of the g"overnment on the basis of complete 
justice. Free from selfishness, without concealment, and 
without compromise, inspired with this great purpose, they 
patiently endured mob violence and the persecutions of mad- 
dened men. Though often assailed they assailed not again. 
In their lives they were as beautiful as the morning, tolerant 
as charit}^, and gentle as the spirit of peace. I can never 
tire in my praises of these grand men and women. In our 
anti-slavery triumph and national regeneration behold the 
fruits of their labor, which transcend even the hopes and 
expectations of enthusiastic poets and philosophers. To 
them we owe a country redeemed, regenerated, and disen- 
thralled from the despotism of slavery, a country which to- 
day is presided over by the genius of universal liberty and 
universal peace. 

Letter from Hon. C. L. MaxweU, Xenia, Ohio, U. S. Consul to San 
Domingco. 
Through this volume, in every one of Mr. Ashley's speeches, 
there is a philosophy as liberal as it is broad and sincere. In all he 
says, there is a calm hopefulness and a quiet dignity, eloquent for 
its simplicity. No effort is anywhere apparent at sensational ora- 
tory, but there is always a clearness and strength of statement 
■which commands attention and carries conviction. His appeals for 
c. L. MAXWELL, the rights of labor are earnest and hopeful, and appear in many 
speeches in this volume. Every one who reads them will learn how persistently Mr. 
Ashley has for years been pleading for the rights of all races of men, and for the up- 
lifting of the human race. In one of his poetic quotations, he says, that "In the 
Majesty of Nature, he would teach the Majesty of Man." C. I<. Maxwell. 




HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY 

ON 

Greei,ey and Grant. 



THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN OP 1872. 



The Liberal Republicans of Toledo held a large meeting- 
last nig-ht at White's Hall, to ratif}' the nomination of Horace 
Greeley, their foremost anti-slavery leader. 

At an early hour, the hall was filled to overflowing" with 
enthusiastic old-time Republicans. 

William E. Parmelee, one of the early abolitionists, was 
made chairman. 

After a few pertinent remarks he introduced the orator 
of the occasion, who was received with hearty and prolong-ed 
cheers, and spoke as follows. 

ADDRESS OF HON. J. M. ASHI.EY. 

Feli^ow-Citizens: A remembrance of the many cordial 
greeting's which I have received in the past, when standing* 
before you on this platform, and the enthusiastic and cordial 
welcome which you have extended to me to-nig-ht, fills my 
heart with emotions which I will not undertake to express. 
I can only say that I thank you most sincerely for this gener- 
ous and flattering welcome. [Applause.] 

If, in what I shall say to you to-night, in discussing the 
questions of the hour, I shall deal with them dispassionately, 
I hope I shall not disappoint 3'ou. 

Twenty years ago, this coming fall, I left the part)^ of 
my choice and voluntarily went into the minority, casting my 
first presidential vote in this city for Hale and Julian, the 

— 560-- 



— 561 — 

Abolition candidates of that year, for President and Vice- 
President of the United States. I need not say to you that I 
then knew, as everybody knew, that the g-entlemen for whom 
I cast my vote could not be elected. I intended that my vote 
should be counted with other votes as a silent, but earnest 
protest agfainst the crime of slavery and the attempted sub- 
ordination of the National Government to the imperious de- 
mand of the slave barons. [Loud cheers.] At that time the 
old Democratic party to which I belonged had possession of 
the National and more than three-fourths of all the State 
Governments, including- Ohio, and every county in this Con- 
gressional District. In going into that apparently hopeless 
minority I simply followed my highest convictions of duty, 
not stopping to count the cost to me politically or personally. 
I was content then, as I am now, to leave the consequences 
to Him who has promised to overturn and overturn until every 
wrong shall be put under His feet. [Loud applause.] 

It was then said, by those who believed themselves to be 
my best friends, that I had very foolishly thrown away the 
brightest political prospect of any young man in Ohio. I had 
been schooled in the old Democratic party, and substantially 
agreed with it on all political questions of statesmanship, ex- 
cept that of state-rights and slavery. I believed then, as I do 
now, that a large proportion of the people of the Northern 
States were as true to freedom as I was, but I believed, as 
they did not, that the national Democratic organization had 
proven untrue to the fundamental idea of a true democrac}-; 
that it had been taken possession of by the slave barons, who 
had perverted it and made it the foe of the laboring man and 
the enemy of the human race. [Cheers.] Believing this 
with all my heart, I could not stay with it. The allurements 
of office, and the brilliant vista which ambition pictured, did 
not blind me, and I could not be induced to be either indiffer- 
ent or silent. [Applause.] 

THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 

For twenty years, as you all know, I fought this great 
crime of the centuries with a viarilance which never tired 



o 



6 



— 562 — 

and a perseverance that never faltered until victory perched 
upon our banner. That victory having- been won, as history 
has recorded, I say, as you can, all honor to the memory of 
the true and g-reat-hearted men who never failed in that 
matchless strug-g-le, whether they were in the halls of Congress 
or on the tented field; all honor to them, wherever at the 
present hour their interests or convictions ma}' carry them, 
they shall ever have m}^ grateful remembrance. In this g-reat 
battle which is now upon us, many of the men with whom we 
were then associated will necessarily be divided, but neither am- 
bition nor disappointment oug-ht ever to be permitted to make 
us unmindful of the great victories which, by their joint ef- 
forts with ours, have been achieved in the past. 

With this hope I am prepared to go into the minority 
aarain, if so be when the votes are counted out we are once 
more in a minority. As I g-ave twenty j-ears of my life to 
battle with the capital and oppression that owned its laborers, 
so am I prepared to g-ive twenty 3'ears of my maturer man- 
hood to battling- for the rig-hts of the working--man, convinced 
that in so doing- I am maintaining- the true democratic idea of 
g-overnment against centralization and military despotism. 
[Loud applause.] 

THE GREAT ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN. 

Gentlemen, you will see by these preliminary remarks 
that I have not come here to-night to ask 3-0U to abandon any 
one of the great ideas for which we have fought, nor have I 
come here to retract any of the principles for which I haA^e 
battled, but rather to ask 3'ou to join hands in making our fight 
for the success of these principles on the Cincinnati platform. 
[Applause.] 

Now, gentlemen, I desire, first, to call your attention to 
the two parties which are in the field and to the two plat- 
forms announcing their ideas. And I ask every man here 
who has been a Republican as long as have, and would 
like to ask and require of those who have been Republicans 
as long as I have, and who have voted unflinchingly as long as I 
have, to at least deal honorably with their brethren who now 
differ with them in opinion. I ask you, gentlemen, to take 



— 563 — 

these two platforms, and in a thoug-litful mood analyze them, 
and tell me as honest men, divested of party spirit, which of 
the two commends itself to you and most deserves your votes. 
As independent thinkers I venture to say that four-fifths of 
you will determine that the Cincinnati platform is far in ad- 
vance of any platform previously adopted by any party 
in this country ! [Cheers.] 

I take it that nine-tenths of the thinking- men of the 
land, when they come to give these two platforms their honest, 
thoug-htful consideration, will say that of the two, this Cin- 
cinnati platform best represents the old ideas of the Republi- 
can party. 

I,OOK ON THIS PICTURE AND ON THIS I 

Then as to the men! And here I am compelled to depart 
from the course which I have always followed in discussing- 
political questions, to wit: to omit all mention of names. I 
am compelled to be more personal, as there are two Republi- 
can candidates, and I must present to you the points in the 
character of one candidate at least — if I say nothing- of the 
other — so that j^ou may form some judgment as to the rela- 
tive merits of the men and the ideas which underlie this con- 
flict. 

Among the sillj- campaign charges brought against us, 
is that every man who is supporting Greeley is a sorehead 
and a disappointed man. [Laughter.] Now it would have 
been a very easy thing for me not to have been a sorehead, if 
I had chosen to accept the positions tendered me by President 
Grant. But as I had made up my mind to oppose his re- 
election, I could not honorably accept of&ce at his hands. I 
said this to him kindly but frankly during the last interview 
I had with him at the White House. And this interview, I 
may say, was on his own invitation, through Secretary 
Delano. I do not believe that General Grant is a corrupt or 
bad meaning man, as many of our blind partisans charge, 
but I do believe that the corrupt rings, which now dominate 
and control his administration, must be driven from power — 
and I do not believe that General Grant can or will do it, sc 
long as he is President. 



-564 — 

The whisky ring-, the post-office ring-, the Indian ring-, 
the Washing-ton City ^-ing-, and last thoug-h not least, the 
army ring-, make a formidable combination of plunderers, 
which General Grant seems powerless to resist. 

These ring-s have made open or secret war upon all the 
old anti-slaver}' g^uard, from Sumner and Greeley down. 

I have often, when speaking- to Sumner and others of 
General Grant's administration, quoted, more than half ap- 
provingl}^ the declaration of Henry Clay ag-ainst Jackson 
when in his wrath he exclaimed, "War, pestilence and fam- 
ine, in preference to a military chieftain for the Presidency." 
[Applause.] 



Fellow-citizens, you will bear me witness, I know, 
that I have never failed either in Cong-ress or out of it, to 
denounce and to vote ag-ainst all measures which I regarded 
as dang-erous to the country, or unjust to the black man! 
And I have never hesitated to antagonize men, however able, 
whatever their official positions, if I believed them wrong, or 
intending wrong. [Applause.] 

Vv'hcn I introduced the resolutions for the impeachment 
of Andrew Johnson, I did it as a public dut}'. Personally, 
I had no cause of quarrel with Mr. Johnson, as his bullet- 
headed claqueurs and the chickadee 'statesmen have ig- 
norantly assumed, and with brazen tongue, charged. What 
I then did, was done without undertaking to count the cost 
to myself personally, or to determine what its effect might be 
■upon me politically. You who know me, understand that I 
have never been governed in my public acts or utterances, by 
that rascally virtue, called "discretion." [Applause.] The 
record I then made will stand, and I do not believe that the 
loyal men of the nation will ever be ashamed of my actions 
in connection with the impeachment struggle. [Applause.] 

When General Grant surrounded himself with unworthy 
and objectionable men, who both openly and secretly made 
war upon Sumner and Chase, Greeley and Trumbull, Scliurz 
and Julian, and nearly all the old anti-slavery guard, and 
permitted his administration to be dominated in all its depart- 
ments by ring rule, they were forced, and the old anti-slavery 



— 565 — 

guard all over the country, in self-defense, were forced to 
protest, and oppose his re-election. [Applause.] We may 
not be able to defeat General Grant in this contest, and prob- 
ably shall not. But it is none the less our duty to protest, 
and to protest in earnest, by voting- for Greeley. [Applause.] 
And I am glad to be able to tell you to-night, that in this 
"Liberal Republican" movement, we have protesting with 
us, nearly all the old anti-slavery guard. [Applause.] 

We have not only such men as our friend on my right, 
who is presiding over this great meeting, but we have with 
us such recognized and manly leaders as Chief Justice Chase 
and Senators Sumner, of Massachusetts, Doolittle, of Wis- 
consin, Trumbull, of Illinois, and Carl Schurz, of Missouri, 
who never bowed the knee to the Moloch of slavery. [Ap- 
plause.] We also have with us, Whitelaw Reid, of the 
"New York Tribune," Chauncey M. Depew, Governor Fen- 
ton, Frederick A. Conkling,and many other able and eminent 
Republicans in the great State of New York. Then, there is 
Julian, of Indiana, Abolition candidate for Vice-President on 
the ticket with John P. Hale, in 1852, and for whom I then 
voted; and so on, in all the Northern States, you will find that 
the old anti-slavery guard are, as if by intuition, with us, for 
that safe, wise, clear-headed, great-hearted, matchless anti- 
slavery leader, Horace Greeley! [Great applause.] And 
here let me ask, why should an old anti-slavery man vote for 
General Grant, and against Horace Greeley? All his life 
Greeley has been one of the ablest and truest leaders, in our 
great anti-slavery struggle, never hesitating, never doubting, 
never faltering; a forerunner, as it were, like John the Baptist 
in the wilderness; a man of pure life, unselfish purpose, a 
faithful friend and manly enemy; a man without guile and 
without hj'pocris}^ [Applause.] 

General Grant, during all his early life, was a pro-slavery 
Democrat. 

In talking to me one day, soon after his election in 1868, 
he told me, that in 1856 he voted for that recognized Northern 
representative of the slave barons, James Buchanan, and of 
course against John C. Fremont, the Republican candidate for 
President. He did not say, in so many words, that he regretted 
that vote, but I inferred from what he did say, and the way 



— 566 — 

he said it, that he did regret it, and we all hope that he has 
always regretted it since. [Applause.] 

In 1860, I am credibly informed that he voted against 
Abraham Lincoln and for Stephen A. Douglas, and it is 
openly stated by well-known Illinois Republicans in Wash- 
ington, that not until after General Grant was nominated for 
President by the Republican part}' did he vote the Republican 
ticket, or support the Republican part}-, or its representative 
men, except it was reported that he favored Mr. Lincoln's elec- 
tion in 1864, in preference to McClellan. And I have no doubt 
that is true. 

Fellow-citizens, this presidential canvass is unlike any 
in our history. Greeley, who was nominated at Cincin- 
nati by the old Abolitionists, and in fact by a new party, 
which in their national convention, they called the "Liberal 
Republican Party," has been nominated as you know, by the 
regular national Democratic convention at Baltimore, and 
thus Greeley, who never was a Democrat, is made the Demo- 
cratic candidate, and General Grant, who was all his life a 
regular Bourbon Democrat, and never a Republican, until af- 
ter he was nominated by that party for President, is a can- 
didate of the machine Republicans. From a philosophical 
standpoint, and as I look at the situation, this unprecedented 
condition of national affairs, is not bad for the nation, nor 
for the people, however undesirable it may be for the machine 
politician, or for the of&ce-holder and office-seeker. [Ap- 
plause.] 

The old anti-slavery guard believe that the negro, in all 
his rights and interests, will be in far safer hands if Greeley 
is elected President, than he would be under General Grant. 
If I thought otherwise, I would not vote for ISIr. Greelc}-, 
much as I admire him. [Applause.] And when I tell 3'ou, 
that from my first introduction to him, before I was twenty 
j-ears old, to this hour, he has been my loyal, steadfast friend, 
3'ou will not wonder at my confidence in him, nor at m}' active 
enthusiastic support of him now. [Applause.] I would vote 
for him if I knew that he would not receive a single electoral 
vote. I intend to do just as I did in 1852, when I protested 
against the slave barons, by voting for Hale and Julian. INIy 



— 567 — 

vote this year will be a protest ag-ainst ring- rule and military 
domination. [Applause.] 



Fellow-citizens, however hig-hly I may have esteemed 
General Grant as a military man, I did not desire to see him 
made Chief Mag-istrate of this nation four years ag-o, nor do 
I now. I did not want him nominated in 1868, and was only 
compelled by circumstances to vote for him then. The ma- 
jority of the men in this Liberal Republican movement are 
not only not soreheads, but are men who never asked for nor 
held office under this Administration, either by election or 
appointment. [Cheers.] 

T aver, further, that the majority of the men in power 
who are now denouncing- us, from the hig-hest down to the 
lowest tide-waiter, were the most unscrupulous pro-slavery 
men in the nation, some of them even stabbing- us in the 
dark, until the triumph of the anti-slavery cause made their 
attacks useless. [Loud cheers.] 

WHO ARE THE SOREHEADS? 

I claim, g-entlemen, that we come to you and present you 
with a platform, framed and upheld by as disinterested a set 
of men as can be called tog-ether for the discussion of national 
affairs. Why, sir, if no man were permitted to speak whom 
the Executive of the nation had assailed or stricken down, 
then, all that the Executive would be called upon to do, 
would be to assail and strike down a man in order that he should 
be made dumb. So should Sumner be dumb; so should Trum- 
bull and Schurz, ex-Governor Cox and every independent 
thinker in the land. Why, sir, the cabals and ringfs charg-e 
every man that g"oes out of their ranks and fig-hts the battle 
on his own hook, with being- a sorehead. I have no doubt that 
Pharaoh said Moses was a miserable sorehead when he under- 
took to lead the children of Israel out of Eg'j'ptian bondag-e. 
[Laug-hter.] So with all the g-rand men that have battled 
for ideas all along- down the whole line. 

The men in power are disturbed by it, and they sa}', 
*'What does that fellow want now?" [Laug-hter.] When 



— 568 — 

a man attempts to orgfanize a Greeley club, the charg-e is a1 
once made that he is seeking- some office, and the worst of it 
is, that in partisan newspapers the best and purest men are 
basely assailed, and the most unprincipled men are often 
lauded the hig-hest. 

MORTON, THE MANY-SIDED. 

Let me look at some objections made to Mr. Greele}'. 
And first, the charg-e made by Senator Morton at Indianapolis 
the other da}-, in a speech of which I have, I am sorr}' to say, 
only a synopsis, that if Greeley is elected, financial ruin and 
all kinds of disaster will come upon the country. What Mr. 
Morton thinks and says may not be of any very g-reat weight, 
and if I had his political history, I am certain I would not be up- 
on this stand to-night. He is a man who held back during- 
the strug-gles of the anti-slavery party, and denounced us in 
the vilest manner. He defended Johnson till he saw we were 
g-oing- to bring- him to the bar of the United States, and then 
he became one of his bitterest accusers 1 He was the man 
who at first advocated Pendleton's g-reenback theor}-, and 
abandoned it as soon as he saw the wave was receding- and 
would leave him on the strand! This is the man who comes 
unblushing-ly forward before the citizens of Indianapolis and 
says if Greeley is elected the country will come to financial 
ruin. 

Let us show a little common-sense in this matter. Let 
us see of those who have been President for the last twenty 
years how many have been remarkable for financial ability. 
Can you tell me, if you were a member of an}' g-reat commer- 
cial corporation, if you would invite any one of them to be 
head of it? 

GREELEY AND GREENBACKS. 

What does the present head of the government know 
about finances? [Laug-hter.] The assumption that he 
knows an^'thing about it is preposterous. 

Let us look at what Greeley has said. He has said no 
more about a return to specie payment than has Chief Justice 



— 569 — 

Chase — and you will all admit that he has some financial 
brains. Mr. Chase said, "that the way to resume specie pay- 
ment was to resume;" Mr. Greeley said the same thing- in his 
paper, by which he meant that all means should be em- 
ployed, consistent with the law and the safety of the finan- 
cial relations of the country, which would lead to that result. 
It is an easy matter for me, or any man, to say that the right 
way to do such a thing" is to do it; but when you come to 
doing- it, there may be some mechanical or physical difficulty 
to be encountered, which only discussion and mature judg- 
ment may enable us to overcome. The duty of every officer 
of the g-overnment is to execute the laws. 

Neither the Executive of the nation (unless he entirely 
disreg-ards law) nor the Secretary of the Treasury can do 
aught in the matter of administering- the financial affairs of 
the country, except in strict accordance with the law. So if 
Mr. Greeley g-oes into the White House, and selects a new 
Secretary of the Treasury, the financial ripple will not make 
a half-cent difference, except in favor of the people. [Ap- 
plause.] 



BOUTWEI.I. AND BUI,I.ION. 

Now I undertake to say that the policy pursued by the 
present Secretary of the Treasury is disastrous to the best 
interests of our country; it is disastrous to the West; and 
Greeley has insisted from the first, that this disastrous 
policy should not be pursued. What is that policy? To 
keep locked up in the Treasury $112,000,000 in g-old, when 
every man understands, who knows anj^thing- about finance, 
that the country can go along safely with $40,000,000 in the 
Treasury. I have repeatedly said to Governor Boutwell, 
Secretary of the Treasury, that I could sleep very soundly 
as Treasurer, if I had lociked up $112,000,000 of gold all the 
time, and knew that under no possibility could I be called on 
for half of it. Not only Chief Justice Chase, with whom I 
have talked repeatedly, but Mr. Greeley, and every man who 
has given the subject careful thought, knows that there are 
$70,000,000 which could be safely used in taking up the 



— 570 — 

bonds, on which we pay interest, and burn them. [Ap- 
plause.] 

In taking- up that $70,000,000 of six per cent, bonds, you 
would save over $4,000,000 a year in interest and not only so, 
but in distributing- the mone}^ over the country it is worth six 
per cent., and the people would gain $4,000,000 more, to say 
nothing- of the immense advantages which these $70,000,000 
would be annually to commerce and to the people. This taking- 
up the bonds and burning- them, instead of g-reenbacks, on 
which no interest is paid, and thus reducing- the price of g-rain, 
leather, etc., would be very g-ratifying- to me if I was a bond- 
holder and indifferent to the rights of others. Greele}' de- 
mands that the policy of the g-overnment shall be so far modi- 
fied as to take in the bonds on which we pay interest, and thus 
reduce the necessity of buying- g-old every 3'ear to pay the 
interest. If Horace Greeley g-oes into the White House, he 
will see to it that no such vast amount of the people's treas- 
ure is locked up there as is now in the vaults, to the detri- 
ment of commerce, to the injury of business, and from which 
the West is suffering, as a consequence. [Applause.] 

GREELEY, PEACE AND PROSPERITY. 

What objection is there to Horace Greeley? Why, these 
men say that Greeley is going- to be elected by theDemocratsI 
[Laughter and cheers.] And, therefore, all the anti-slavery 
men are compelled to be Democrats in order to have him 
elected. I saw a letter the other da_y fro m an old Quaker lady, 
in reply to one written to her about the Cincinnati movement, 
and telling her that the charge was made of coalition and sell- 
ing out on the part of the Liberal Republicans, and she wrote 
back to this effect: " The charge of selling out and coalition is 
preposterous; the old issues which kept the Democratic party 
alive are dead, and new issues must be adopted. If the}' take 
our ideas, I am not ashamed to take their name." [Applause.] 

Now, gentlemen, I do not fear the Democrats, and if 
Greeley can unite all the people of this country who have 
been in antagonism to each other, and they can go upon that 
Cincinnati platform and strike hands, it will be one of the 
grandest moral revolutions that this nation, or the world, 



— 571 — 

has ever witnessed! [Cheers.] And that is to be the result. 
Therefore, I say to jou, that nothing- could happen in this 
country more calculated to g-ive it quiet and peace, order, se- 
curity and prosperity, than for those who have been in an- 
tag-onism to these g-reat ideas, to come up and adopt them, 
and elect a man to the Presidency of the United States who, 
for thirty years, has marched to the tune of liberty and the 
rig-hts of man! [Cheers.] 

grant's shortcomings and usurpations. 

Now, gentlemen, for a moment let us see what we shall 
gain. There will no longer be that centralization of power 
which you now see in the hands of the National Executive, 
the Executive becoming, as it were, the law-making as well 
as the appointing power. If Greeley goes into the presiden- 
tial office, he goes there pledged not to use the veto power 
he goes there pledged not to use the appointing power for 
personal ends. And, gentlemen, we shall have civil service, 
reform; we shall have that kind of reform which is demo- 
cratic in truth and in fact, that the Executive shall no lonarer 
be any part of the law-making power. This Government of 
ours is to-day in its executive department a government 
of materialization and force. Under this administration they 
believe that force and office can do anything, and therefore, 
they do not hesitate to stalk into the Senate of the United 
States, and dismiss Charles Sumner from its highest and 
most important cdmmittee, the oldest, and most honored and 
distinguished Senator, and put in his place a man whose 
name I need not mention. [Applause.] So of all their 
movements. 

the mii^itary vs. the democratic idea. 

Mr. Chairman. The spirit of war, and the spirt of demo- 
cratic institutions, must forever remain in antagonism. Force, 
w^hen skillfully directed by a single military chief, gives suc- 
cess in war. In peace reason must rule. In the councils of 
the people, under a true democracy, free discussion, manl}- 
criticism, and a strict adherence to the Constitution, are the 



— 572 — 

truest safeguards for the preservation of a democratic gov- 
ernment. Discipline and unquestioned obedience on the 
part of the soldier, gives strength and ef&ciency to armies, 
but when this nation 3'ields its civil administration to the 
spirit of war, it surrenders the lawful rights of its citizens 
and imperils constitutional liberty. Whenever the military 
power shall have complete dominion of this country, its au- 
thority will become absolute, and the Chief Executive of the 
nation will be a dictator. [Applause.] 

OUR INDIAN NO-POWCY. 

The Indian policy on which the Grant Administration 
seems disposed to plume itself is also a failure. According 
to its own reports the expenditures are over seven millions of 
dollars annually, whereas, in Buchanan's time, it was only a 
little over two millions, and this, too, in face of the fact that 
the Indians have been constantly decreasing in numbers and 
strength. While we have been spending these vast sums of 
money, we have failed to secure safety to life and property, and 
large numbers of our people have been cruelly massacred since 
the inauguration of this stupid policy, which assumes to treat 
savages as civilized men, and recognizes their right to make 
treaties, to make war, and to hold our citizens as prisoners of 
war on our own territory. [Cheers.] 

In addition to this expenditure, large sums reall}^ ex- 
pended upon the Indians are charged to the War Department, 
the amount of which I have no means of estimating. Our 
troops are moved over the plains, marched and counter- 
marched to distant points, where transportation for every 
scrap of supplies for man and beast costs from ten to twent}'- 
five cents per pound, and all of which goes into the item of ex- 
penditures for the ami}', and can not be ascertained as a sepa- 
rate item, which ought to be put down to the so-called Indian 
policy. 

HOW THE BRITISH LION WEEPS. 

Talk about the efficiency of the present Administration, 
indeed! Look at our foreign polic}-, and say if it is not so 



5,1--, 
/o — 

muddled that no man who was not muddled could have landed 
us in such a labyrinth of stupidity. Think of the humiliation 
to which we have been subjected! The org-ans of the Ad- 
ministration have treated us to some caricatures in which 
Secretary Fish looks big- and stands on the tail of the British 
lion, and the poor lion is shedding- tears in its humiliation 
and distress. Now, it would be vastly more true to history 
if Grant and Fish were down and the lion, having- ceased 
weeping, had its paw upon them. [Loud laughter and cheers.] 
In most of the caricatures that I have seen of late there is 
about as much truth as in this one. 

So long- as we shall adhere to the present two-term policy 
instead of adopting- the one-term — so long- as the President 
is eligible to re-election — just so long- shall we witness such 
a convention as assembled at Philadelphia, and just so long* 
will such men be nominated for the highest offices in the gift 
of a free people. [Cheers.] Gentlemen, look over the acts 
of this Administration, commencing with the appointment 
of the first Cabinet, and you will see abundant reason why 
this great Republican party to which you and I belong has 
been divided and broken. 

GRANT AND HIS CABINET. 

In an unfortunate hour, to prevent our opponents from 
taking this man, who never belonged to our party, we took 
Grant and elected him; and one of his first acts was the selec- 
tion of a Cabinet that was a surprise and an offense to the 
American people. With an exception or two he has con- 
tinued in the same course until he has surrounded himself 
with men who have been a trouble and a disgrace to the 
nation. Not one of the Cabinet ministers — save the Secre- 
tary of the Interior, and his affairs have not been examined 
into — but has been convicted of a violation of the law. 
[Cries of "That's so."] And the paltry excuse which they 
give for violating the law is that they thought it was for the 
best interests of the country that the law should be violated. 
[Great laughter.] That was the excuse which Secretary 
Boutwell gave when he negotiated our bonds in Europe, and 
spent more money than he was authorized to spend by law. 



— 574 — 

That was the excuse Secretary Robeson g"ave when he took 
ninety-three thousand dollars out of the Treasury, which he 
was not authorized to take, and so much more than Cong-ress, 
by special resolution, provided. So with the Post-office De- 
partment and so with the War Department. But, g-entlemen, 
this is inevitable when men without character, without 
ability, without antecedents, are called in to administer the 
affairs of the nation. Under such a regime rings will be 
formed, incapacity dictate, and corruption rule the hour, 
[Cheers.] 

TIME FOR A CHANGE. 

Now, g-entlemen, we propose to change all this by put- 
ting" a man at the head whose integ-rity has never been ques- 
tioned. A man who as a poor boy went to New York, and 
had the brains, the ability and character to build up a paper 
that is worth a million of dollars to-day. A man, too, who 
has had the g-ood luck or sense to call around him other men 
of character and ability, and that which a man does in his 
private life 3^ou may, as a rule, expect he will adhere to when 
he is called upon to perform public and official acts. May we 
not therefore expect that if Greeley comes to the presidential 
chair he will call around him men who will be of like quality 
with himself, men of culture and experience, and that he will 
scrupulously eschew 3'our mousing* politicians whose notions 
of public duty are confined to their own ag"g"randizement, 
unless they are cowardly as well as base, in which case they 
form a ring. [Loud laughter and cheers.] 

A Cabinet officer lately said to me, " If Greeley is elected 
he will be compelled to select some rebel for his Cabinet." I 
replied, "If he does he will select a rebel of brains whom he 
will not be compelled to kick out in six weeks." [Laughter.] 

If he does select one who has been a rebel, it will be 
because he has brains for the position, and such an act would 
show a disposition to strike hands over the past — to forget 
the past — and over the memories of the fallen dead to pledg^e 
ourselves to the future weal and glory of our common coun- 
try. [Loud cheers.] And do we not want peace, and union, 
and forgiveness of the past? [Applause.] I repeat what I 



— 575 — 

said in Congress, in 1865, that we would g-ladly welcome the 
returning- prodig-al, and kill the fatted calf, if he would only 
return to the Union, and swear fidelity to the flag-)* 

GREEtEY THE MAN OF THE PEOPI^E. 

Is not this the feeling- that inspires the great body of the 
people? This is the spirit which, throug-hout all this coun- 
try, demands that Mr. Greeley should be elected. Has he not 
always been on the side of the poor man, and on the side of 
the oppressed, trying- to lift them up to better possibilities? 
The people feel that if we elect Horace Greeley we shall have 
an era of g-ood feeling- in this nation, which we shall not, and 
can not hav^e under an Administration that is indifferent to 
every sentiment of justice and rig-ht. 

THE UNHAPPY SOUTH. 

When you look over the South to-day, and witness the' 
terrible condition of her people, 3'ou see how they were im- 
poverished, not only by our armies, but you see how they are 
robbed b}^ a swarm of carpet-bag- thieves, retained by the Ad- 
ministration, or who have at least been permitted to sail un-i 
der the banner of the Administration, until almost every' 
State, except Mississippi [which had a Southern man for g-Qv- 
ernor] , has been impoverished and bankrupted by these men. , 

So, also, in the custom-houses in New Orleans and New 
York; indeed, all over the countr}^ 3^ou find this same irre- 
sponsible class of men called into the service of the Govern- 
ment, to administer its affairs and to maintain and stand by 
the Government. 

If you and I had been Southern men should we have sub-! 
mitted to be treated as they have been? Take South Caroli- 
na, for instance. Without a call from the g-overnor, without 
a call from the leg-islature, in a State where thej- have a color- 
ed majority of from twenty to thirty thousand, the President,, 
at somebody's beck, issues a proclamation proclaiming- mar- 
tial law and suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and so 
eag-er was he to issue this proclamation that he included sev- 
eral counties in which no disorder existed. Thus was the 



— 576 — 

bayonet put to the throat of these people, who could be car. 
ried off from their families at night, or at an}' time, and 
thrust int% prison, where no process of an}' court could reach 
them, and where the}- could be dealt with only by the 
army, and not by the law, which should be their protec- 
tion and support. The idea of a free Government like this, 
■\vith an executive at its head reaching- out into every local- 
ity, undertaking- to control it, when a majority of the people 
belong- to its own party and can control it as well, if they 
choose! *" 

THE COLORED RACE. 

Now a word to the black man. No man can put his 

HAND UPON a word EVER DROPPED, OR WRITTEN BY ME, OR A 
VOTE EVER GIVEN BY ME, THAT WAS NOT FOR HIM; if he Can 

let him speak, and let the blatant demagog-ues who fought 
against his rights, and struck him in the back when I was 
fighting for him, hold their peace. 

I appeal to every black man, not only here, but every- 
where in America. This ticket that has been nominated is 
composed of old anti-slavery men, who were guardians of 
that thought at a time when it required pluck and faith and 
fidelity to be so. Where is the black man who would be 
afraid to follow the benign face and benevolent heart of Hor- 
ace Greeley? Where is the man who would hesitate to follow 
that gallant Kentuckian who, when I was a boy, was as 
strong an anti-slavery man as Cassius M. Clay? Where is 
the man who would be afraid to follow the distinguished and 
able Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, the fore- 
most man of this people? [Applause.] Of the grand army 
of men who compose this Liberal Republican movement, you 
find four-fifths of all the men who, in the early struggle in 
forming the Republican party, constituted its advance guard, 
while the camp-followers and thieves, who came in afterward 
and took possession of it, were fighting us till victory was 
achieved. [Cheers.] 

CONCI,USION. 

And now, gentlemen, I would say that in coming to this 



— 577 — 

conclusion, I have not done so without careful thought and 
long" and anxious study. It is not an easy matter for a man 
with the strong" personal attachments that I have, to sever his 
political connection from a majority of those with whom he 
has been acting" for twenty of the most eventful years of his 
life; but I do it from the hig-hest convictions of duty, and 
though I went out alone, I should be compelled to go, as I did 
in '52. But I thank Heaven that instead of having the small 
number, as then, we have had a kind of Pentecost all over 
the land. 

Recently I was in Illinois, and there, as in Ohio, I saw 
men come up and stretch hands towards each other who had 
been parted for years. [Cheers.] They are going to bury 
the past; the}^ are going to forget and forgive the past, and 
to say that in the future, come what ma}-, intervention, for- 
eign war, never again shall fraternal blood be shed in our land; 
never again shall the dark shadows of civil war overhang 
our homes; but this country shall be one in sentiment, one in 
fraternal faith, one in nationality, one in promise of unlim- 
ited grandeur; that we shall stand shoulder to shoulder, and 
swear by Him who liveth forever that come what may, no 
other flag shall ever float above our homes or graves. [Great 
cheering.] 

The organization of a campaign Greeley Club and the 
appointment of officers terminated the proceeding's. 



37 



CENTENNIAL ORATION. 



Wood County Centennial Celebration, July 4, 1876. 



At a meeting- of the Wood County Board of Agriculture, 
held in Tontogany on Friday, February IS, 1876, it was 
resolved to adopt the sug"gestion of the Ohio State Board of 
Ag"riculture in relation to holding a centennial celebration on 
the county fair g-rounds, at Tontogany, on the 4th of July 
next, and the following- preamble and resolutions were unani- 
mously adopted: 

Whereas, The Centennial authorities at Philadelphia 
have recommended the celebration of the coming- 4th day of 
July in each organized county in the United States, and that 
a competent person be selected to prepare an historical 
address to be delivered on that occasion, etc. 



E. TuLLER, President. 
W. H. Wood, Secretary. 

Honorable James M. Ashley was selected, and the fol- 
lowing is his oration: 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-citizens, 

all: 

On this, the one-hundredth birthday of our national 
independence, we meet to commemorate the heroism and 
matchless deeds of those who lived, strug-g-led and died that a 
free and beneficent g-overnment might be established, and 
liberty have a secure resting--place on earth. We meet to call 
up the memory of the great and the good, whose hearts con- 
ceived and whose brains molded the ideal republic of the 
world, a symmetrical, beautiful temple of human wisdom, 
and of human brotherhood, within whose sacred t: jrtals, 

— 578— 



— 579 — 

every race, and kindred, and tong-ue, and people, may at? 
LAST, enjoy life and liberty, security and peace. [Applause.] 

NORTHWEST OHIO. 

I cannot repeat to you the names of all the heroes of the 
Revolution, nor need I attempt to recount to you the toils, 
the privations and the sacrifices, of the noble men by whom 
this Government was founded. It is a story familiar to you 
all. Neither need I speak of our second war of indepen- 
dence, nor do more than refer to the fact that we whose 
homes are in Northwestern Ohio, and in the adjacent terri- 
tory of Michig-an and Indiana, live in a locality made classic 
by the splendid military achievements of the early frontier 
settlers, under the leadership of Anthony Wayne in 1794 and 
of General Harrison, Colonel Dick Johnson and the gallant 
Crog-han in fighting- the British and their Indian allies in 
1813 and '14. At that time all this beautiful region of coun- 
try was a vast wilderness, and the spot on which we are 
celebrating to-day, was then an unbroken solitude, undis- 
turbed as yet by the hardy pioneer, the stillness of the 
prairie and forest being broken only by the howl of the 
wolf, and the terrific yell of the wild man. [Applause.] 

OUR NATIONAL GROWTH. 

As a nation, our material growth, in the first century of 
our existence, is unparalleled in history. Beginning with 
THIRTEEN States, we to-day number thirty-eight, and our 
territorial jurisdiction spans the continent from ocean to 
ocean, and extends from the tropics to the frozen regions. 

Within one hundred years, the mightiest republic the 
world ever saw has grown to manhood, and numbers at least 
40,000,000 of freemen who are at peace with themselves and 
with all the world. Over this vast expanse of territory the 
benign power of the best government ever devised by man, is 
fully recognized, and a nation comprising a sisterhood of 
commonwealths, is presided over by a National Government, 
organized for the special protection and defense of all. It 
is impossible to overestimate the blessings of such a govern- 



— 5S0 — 

merit and the value of the public and private institutions 
which are the leg"itimate outgrowth of it. It is only a com- 
parison with other nations that the priceless value of our 
inheritance becomes apparent. 

Only when we compare our condition^ material and 
social, with that of other nations, can webeg-into estimate its 
value. Nowhere else can be found such a combination of 
soil and climate; nowhere productions so abundant for the 
same labor; nowhere human industr}' so richly rewarded; 
nowhere such liberty and independence for the citizens. He 
who, having been born beneath that flag", does not love 
his country and g-overnment, is an unnatural monster, who is 
UNFIT TO LIVE, and unfit to die, and ougfht to be cast out to 
join Victor Hug-o's "Wandering- Jew," or to become a com- 
panion of the "Man without a country." [Applause.] 

OUR FATAL BLUNDERS. 

Wonderful as were our military triumphs m the war of 
the Revolution, in the war of 1812, and in the Mexican war, 
our material achievements have eclipsed them all. Only in. 
our political administration, have we fallen short of the ideal 
grandeur of which the young republic gave bright promise. 
Notwithstanding the earnest warnings of Washington and 
Jefferson, of Franklin, Payne and others, the fatal blunders 
in our civil administration finally culminated in the late ter- 
rible war. 

Fellow-citizens: The judgment of history has already 
been pronounced, touching the war of the rebellion, and I 
need only refer here and now to the verdict which the world 
has so general!}' accepted; that slavery was the cause, and 
that the North was right and the South was wrong. We 
all know now that but for slavery no such rebellion would 
have been possible. But for the mad effort of the minority 
to make might right, by substituting the cartridge-box for the 
ballot-box, and the bayonet for the will of the majority as 
constitutionally and honestly expressed in the election of 
Abraham Lincoln, there could have been no war of the rebel- 
lion. At this distance from the scenes of that great conflict, we 
can see when and where we blundered, and see also clearly 



— 581 — 

enoug-h the great mistakes which we made all throug-h our 
national history. We now see that had unselfish and able 
statesmen enacted our laws and administered our government, 
instead of mere politicians, who began bj apolog-izing for 
slavery, and ended by unblushing"ly justifying- it as a divine* 
institution, slavery by the mere force of the Constitution 
would have peaceably ceased to exist on the North American 
continent. After the org-anization of the National Govern- 
ment, slavery could not long- have endured with an honest and 
unperverted interpretation of that great charter of human 
liberty. Only because the national Constitution was grossly 
misinterpreted by courts and by all national and State officials 
who were personally and pecuniarily interested in holding 
slaves as property, would it have been possible to pervert the 
Government from the fundamental purpose of its founders, 
to one justifying and affirming the legality and rightfulness 
of human slavery. Time, which exposes the weak points in 
every man's life, exposes also the weak points in a nation's 
life. It is now easy enough to see that slavery was our fatal 
sin. Around the neck of the new-born nation, the men of 
policy permitted to be forged the chains of human slavery, 
and thus inoculated it with a virus which in time was sure to 
have eaten out all national life unless entirely extirpated. 
[Applause.] 

A FATAI, COMPROMISE. 

In laying the foundation of this Government v/e had 
Egypt, Greece and Rome and all history for our guidance, 
yet how little did we profit by their fate and their warning! 
Jefferson and other clear-brained statesmen of the Revolution 
with prophetic vision saw and declared that slavery was the 
tempter in our political paradise, and sought to teach us that 
freedom and slavery could not be chained together and be 
made to walk forever, hand in hand, on this continent in 
peace. All thoughtful men knew that if as a nation we sov/ed 
to the wind we should reap the whirlwind; they knew that if 
we stultified the national conscience and sold our birthright, 
we should ultimately pay the penalty, and yet the lust of am- 
bition and the selfish greed of gain combined, and for a long 



— 582 — 

time made slavery the nation's master. Hoping" that the day 
of retribution might somehow be avoided and the nation es- 
cape the penalt}' fixed by the higher law, the}' consented for 
the promise of temporary peace to all the exacting- and mon- 
strous demands of the slave barons; and thus handed us over 
as a nation to the impartial judgment of history, and to the 
avenging hand of justice to be scourged by fire and sword as 
we were in the late war of the rebellion. [Applause.] 

From the day the Government was established to the be- 
ginning of the war, compromise succeeded compromise and 
surrender followed surrender, until the serpent of slaver}- had 
at last coiled itself around the very vitals of the nation, and 
the time had come when our "policy" statesmen could no 
longer yield to the "tempter" with a new compromise, and 
the nation escape the consequences, by some new scheme of 
evasion, devised to circumvent the plainly written decrees of 
Omnipotence, and so at last we came to realize that as our 
fathers had " sown to the wind we must reap the whirlwind." 

This is the history of men and of nations in all the cen- 
turies. If as a nation or as individuals we postpone from day 
to day and from year to year the correction of abuses and the 
rectification of errors; if we stifle conscience, and compromise 
with wrong; if we are false to truth and evade our present 
duty, hoping for a more convenient time in which to dis- 
charge that duty, that time will never come, until we are 
overtaken by the avenger, justice, and all the world are be- 
wildered with amazement at our criminal foil)', as they were 
when the war of the rebellion burst with such fury upon us. 
[Applause.] 

THE LESSON TAUGHT. 

But our great struggle shall not have been in vain if out 
of the sorrow and suffering which the war brought upon the 
North and South alike, we shall all come to learn, that in the 
cause of injustice and oppression, " they who take the sword 
shall perish by the sword," and the additional lesson, that in 
this nation, so long as speech is free, and the press is free, 
and the ballot is free, " no revolution is worth the shedding 
of one drop of human blood," but that a rebellion of forcr 



— 583 — 

ag-ainst the honestly expressed will of a majority at the ballot- 
box as provided for in the Constitution— is treason ag-ainst 
the democratic idea of g-overnment and a crime ag-ainst the 
human race. [Applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, do not imag-ine because I thus speak of 
the late war of the rebellion that I propose on such an occa- 
sion as this to open afresh the terrible wounds which are now 
being- so g-ratefully healed, t refer to it only to show our 
blunders which are now historic, and as a lesson and a warn- 
ing-, and also to show before I shall have concluded, that the 
class legislation in favor of human slavery was the beg-inning- 
and streng-th in America of all monopoly leg-islation, and 
grants by the Government of special privileges to the few at 
the expense of the many. [Applause.] 

OUR FIRST DUTY. 

To-day I feel that our first duty is, to make our peace 
an enduring peace. To do that the reconciliation between 
North and South must be open and magnanimous and with- 
out any mental reservation or evasion in us whatever. In 
this centennial year let us remember that "Justice and mercy 
are the eternal habitations," and that we want no war cries to 
disturb the national pacification; we want no taunts to the 
vanquished; we want no shouts of victory over fellow-citizens; 
we want no inscription on our flag of stars to be flaunted in the 
faces of our brethren as a reminder of defeat. The great 
Senator from Massachusetts was early inspired with the true 
spirit when he declared that "Victory over fellow-citizens 
should be known only in the rights it secures and assures." 
Neither on our flags nor on pictures at the national capitol, do 
we want to recall our victories over the members of our now 
reunited family. What we want is unquestioned reconcilia. 
tion, concord in fact as v/ell as in name; forgiveness and gen- 
erosity and not animosity and hate. The rule that is best 
for the family is best for the state. Friendship does not 
grow by force, nor confidence by acts of distrust. The Bible 
says that "He who would have friends must first show him- 
self friendly." We must learn that this is as true of nations 
as of individuals. Good-will comes with good-will, friend- 



— 584— 

ship for friendship, and hate for hate. I know of no better 
way to maintain our free institutions unimpaired and pre- 
serve our territorial integ-rity forever, than by recog-nizing- 
the fact that behind our Constitution and beyond the compact 
of written law, there is the necessity of union in sentiment 
and S3'mpathy between the North and the South, if we would 
have this nation g-reat and permanent, and prosperous and 
free. [Applause.] 

Acting upon this sentiment, so soon as the war was over 
I joined with Sumner, and Chase, and Greeley, and nearl}' all 
the leading- abolitionists of the North, in demanding amnesty 
and conciliation for the South. I was for " killing- the fatted 
calf," and welcoming- back to the old mansion every erring- 
brother, and for rehabilitating- at the earliest moment consist- 
ent with national safety, every sister commonwealth with all 
the rig-hts, dig-nities and privileges which had been forfeited 
by mad rebellion. I felt it to be a necessity that we do this 
if we did not want an Ireland or a Poland in America. [Ap- 
plause.] But if it was a necessity I felt that it was rig-ht,also. 
By doing- it we elevated our free republic to new heights of 
moral grandeur, and thus taught the world, that while we 
could conquer the most formidable rebellion of all the ages, 
we could also in the hour of victory restrain and control our- 
selves. If this wise rule of statesmanship can be inaug-urat- 
ed and continued for one administration we shall have a com- 
pletely restored Union, with the rights of all persons sacred- 
ly secured, and our national name untarnished by a single act 
of vindictive punishment, so that above the din of battle and 
above the shouts of victors will shine out forever in history 
this glorious conquest, a conquest in which during- the very 
hour of our triumph we g-o forth with the words of the im- 
mortal Lincoln upon our lips, and exclaim in our welcome, 
"With charity for all and malice toward none." [Applause.] 
These broad and liberal views would, ere this, have been ac- 
cepted by the North and the South but for a class of men who 
insist on maintaining peace by force. Need I say that if the 
ring masters, the selfish party manag-ers and ig-norant parti- 
sans did not dominate so g-enerall}^ in each part}-, there would 
be less injustice and less corruption in the administration of 
the Government? So long- as "rings" control all nomina' 



— 585 — 

tions, you know that just so long- we shall have blind parti- 
sans, ig-norant pretenders, and sharp schemers in charg-e of 
the Government. So offensive has this ring- system of man- 
ag-ement become, and so general the disg-ust at its working-, 
that on an averag-e not one voter in ten, especially in cities, 
attends his party caucus. The rings therefore manage with 
but little opposition. Hundreds of good-meaning citizens do 
not even vote, while a still larger number will have nothing 
to do with men whom they call politicians, regarding all as 
schemers, tricksters and dishonest. [Applause.] 

MEN WANTED. 

Fellow-citizens, it is a great misfortune for the na- 
tion that this feeling is so general, and that so many have 
come to thirfk that the mere fact of a man giving his time and 
attention to political questions, is dishonorable and disrep- 
utable. Political men we must have; men tried and trained 
in statesmanship are to-day one of our greatest needs; cul- 
tured men, pure men, practical men; men whose lives, public 
and private, will stand the test of any crucible, and from 
whose presence thieves and knaves will shrink as vice will flee 
from the presence of virtue. In this centennial year, we 
ought to be able to join with one heart and one mind in the 
aspirations of the poet who exclaims: 

God give us men! a time like this demands 

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; 

Men whom the lust of office does not kill; 

Men whom the spoils of office can not buy, 

Men who possess opinions and a will; 

Men who have honor; men who will not lie; 

Men who can stand before a demagogue. 

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; 

Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 

In public duty and in private thinking; 

For, while the ringleaders with thumb-worn creeds, 

Their large professions and their little deeds. 
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, 
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps. 

[Applause.] 



— 586 — 

ONLY THE CAPABLE FOR POSITIONS OF TRUST. 

And here ma}- I not ask jou why a man cannot be as 
pure, as heroic, and unselfish in political life as in any of the 
learned professions? Why should there not be arts that are 
as honest in politics as in law, or medicine, or in colleg-e pro- 
fessorships, or even in the pulpit? A true statesman never 
despises the honest arts of politics. Those who affect a dis- 
like of honorable political men, and sneer at politicians, are 
either very innocent and thoug-htless persons or weak and 
silly demag-og-ues. Would any sane person select for his 
lawyer, in a critical case, which if lost, would sweep away 
all he possessed, a man who had never looked into a law 
book? Would he select for his physician a man who knew 
nothing- of anatomy or medicine? Would he vote to call a 
minister to take charg-e of his church who could not read the 
Bible? Would he intrust the education of his child to an ig"- 
norant pretender? To ask these questions is to answer them. 
Who would put an unknown and 'untried man in charg-e of a 
steamer or a train of cars freig-hted with human life? Who 
so reckless or so blind as to wish to put a man in charg-e of 
the ship of state, even in a time of peace and dull routine, 
who was ig-norant of the arts of statesmanship? I do not 
hesitate to say that to call such a man to pilot the ship of 
state, whether in a calm or in a storm, would be an act of 
indefensible folly; and as you would not voluntarily, if left 
to your individual judg-ment, intrust the Chief Executive 
of&ce of the nation to an ig-norant, incompetent or corrupt 
man, so you would not deliberately fill any less responsible 
position in the Government with a man unfitted by character 
or education for the trust. Why then is this outrag-e on 
decency and on the public honor, repeated 3'ear after year in 
every State and county? Why have thousands of g-ood men 
everywhere, voted to put men into the most honorable and 
important offices, whom they would not intrust with an}- 
matter of business, however unimportant, for themselves? Is 
it not, fellow-citizens, because they are slaves to the caucus 
and convention system, or because they are blinded by parti- 
san zeal? Has not our experience taug-ht us that the nation 
ought to be so educated on this subject, that it would smite 



— 587 - 

the ring- politician and the ig-norant or corrupt ofBcial as it 
would brand an infamous malefactor? A man who accepts a 
public trust for which he is in no way qualified b}^ natur^il 
ability, or education, inflicts a wrong- upon a community 
which may be more detrimental to the public welfare than 
the commission of a revolting- crime. If he is ig-norant or cor- 
rupt he may do acts more dang-erous to the safety and sta- 
bilit}^ of the state, than any one individual criminal can com- 
mit, however bold or bad. The criminal act of one man in 
private life can affect but one, or at most but a few citizens, 
while the criminal is always in dang-er of arrest, conviction 
and punishment. But the acts of an incompetent or dis- 
honest of&cial may often affect disastrously, and for many 
years, whole communities, and yet, as a rule, such a criminal 
cannot be punished except by dismissal from office at the end 
of his term, and even this cannot always be done, so long- as 
the caucus and convention system remains to dictate for 
whom the members of each party shall vote. Therefore I 
believe such a public sentiment oug-ht to be created, that any 
man who either thrusts himself forward, or who permits his 
friends to present him for nomination to an important public 
trust, for which he has no qualifications, either natural or 
acquired, should be everywhere branded by public sentiment 
as more dang-erous and dishonorable than a public malefactor. 
[Applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, our g-reatest achievement in political 
reform during- the century just closed, and the one which to 
me overshadows all others in its benign influence upon g-ov- 
ernment and people, is the overthrow of slavery and the aboli- 
tion of the privileg-ed class which it created. Fortunatei,y 

THIS ACT WILL, ULTIMATELY ADVANCE THE INTEREST AND BENE- 
FIT THE South more largely than the North. It is of in- 
estimable value to the people of the entire Union, but its 
economical and moral worth is underestimated even here and 
now. We have not all yet learned that a " privileg-ed class," 
created or maintained by act of g-overnment, is A Three- 
fold wrong, in that it endangers the stability of the 
•state, violates the democratic idea, and encroaches up- 
ON THE RIGHTS OP LABOR. A moment's reflection would 
teach that one privileg-ed class soon beg-ets another; and nat- 



— 588 — 

urally enoug-h, during- the continuance of slaver}', men said 
if the g-overnment can authorize a few thousand persons to 
own and appropriate to themselves the labor of four millions 
of men, why may it not g-rant special privileges to us, so that 
by securing- a monopoly or with organized wealth protected 
by law, we can also live upon the half-paid labor of the toiler. 
And so the governments, national, state and municipal, be- 
ginning with "class" legislation, have gone on making new 
grants of power and authorizing the most gigantic monopo- 
lies, until to-day the national, state and municipal govern- 
ments of the entire Union, are administered specially in the 
interests of corporations, " rings," political partisans and per- 
sonal favorites; and these governments are in turn manipulated 
and controlled by the very organized power which they have 
created. Turn which way you will, in all this broad land 
to-day, and you will find that organized wealth with its 
special grants of power is master of government and people, 
[Applause.] 

This formidable power favors from interest and of neces- 
sity, A CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT AND AN ADMINISTRATION 
OF FORCE. It controls the National and State Executives 
when elected, and nominates their successors; it fills Con- 
gress and State legislatures with its paid agents and Cabinets 
and Courts with its retained attorneys. It works in secret, 
and by the aid of a subsidized and venal press, strikes down 
all public men who oppose its grasping power and schemes 
of plunder. It manages in turn by bribery and corruption, a 
majority of the caucuses and conventions of each party, and 
nominates the candidates for whom the elector is forced to 
vote or subject himself to ostracism by his party and thus the 
people whose interest and purpose is to fight these monopo- 
lies, are oftener than otherwise co-operating with them, and 
in the name of party and at the dictation of " King caucus,'' 
vote for and elect the retained agents or attorneys of these 
very monopolies. I need hardly add that the tendency to 
foster all kinds of monopolies, strengthen privilege and con- 
solidate the National Government into an overshadowing 
central power, in which the Executive shall be supreme, was 
never so strong nor so dangerous as now, since the govern- 
ment was organized. You all know that monopoly in the shape 



- 589 — 

•of class legislation, or special grants of power to the few, has 
preyed like a hungry vulture upon the labor of every age, 
that it has eaten out the substance of every people and de- 
stroys the life of every free government, and that it will eat 
out our life and destroy our free institutions unless the sys- 
tem is squarely confronted and made subordinate to the in- 
terest of the people by the restraining power of the Govern- 
ment. [Applause.] 

CORRUPTION. 

The growth and corruption of cities, the increased power 
•of corporate wealth and the continued monopoly of land, in 
my opinion is seriously endangering our democratic theory of 
government, and menacing the solution of the labor problem 
in this country as never before. 

As a necessity of self-preservation the laborers and toil- 
ers of all countries are considering and adopting methods of 
industrial organization, and co-operation. This is a healthy 
and encouraging sign. [Applause.] 

I have given more thought to this industrial question 
than any other social problem, and watched with interest and 
sympathy every movement favorable to co-operation and the 
organization of labor, not only in this country, but in Europe, 
and I am constrained to admit that in Germany they are far 
in advance of us in the practical working of their unions and 
co-operative associations. But our labor unions, and co-op- 
erative societies, the "self-assurance associations," the 
Patrons of Husbandry and Grange organization, have each 
in them much to commend them to the hearty approval of all 
thoughtful men, who see and comprehend the formidable 
power which day by day and year by year, increases in 
strength , and on every hand imperils the rights and interests of 
labor. To you, who are members of the agricultural society 
■of the county, and on whose invitation I am here to-day, and 
to all who make up the farming and laboring population be- 
fore me, I may with propriety speak of the rights of labor 
and the interests of agriculture. 

Agriculture is the natural employment of man. " In the 
sweat of thy face," spake the voice in the garden. The oc- 



— 590 — 

cupation which feeds the human race, and g-ives vitality to all 
commerce and to all other industrial pursuits, ought to be es- 
steemed the most honorable among- men. Human life and 
human progress draw their sustenance from it. When the 
agriculturist fails, all other industries languish. Our farm- 
ing" population outnumber all other classes combined. If 
united, their vote would be a majority in nearly every State. 
I see a harbinger or prophecy of better things in the various 
movements of the farmers for co-operation and organization. 
If they can also draw into a common union with themselves 
the working-men of the country, whose interests are identical 
with their own, they will be invincible, and, under the lead- 
ership of sober, intellig-ent, faithful men, they can accomplish 
whatever may be their deliberate and well-settled purpose. 
Demag-ogues may mislead; unwise methods may for a time 
hinder; blind zeal may postpone, but an honest and persistent 
endeavor will, in the end, enable them to triumph. [Ap- 
plause.] 

DANGEROUS TENDENCIES. 

Of late the unmistakable tendency of many public men is 
to favor capital and pervert the National Government from 
the purpose of its founders, into a government representing 
an aristocracy of wealth, instead of maintaining a real dem- 
ocracy and fostering economy and republican simplicity in an 
honest civil service. If we would preserve our government 
free and pure we must see that every department — national, 
state and municipal — is administed as av/iseand prudent man 
would manage his personal affairs. We must see to it that 
the people administer it instead of rings or privileged classes. 
We must no longer act upon the assumption that the govern- 
ment will maintain and perpetuate itself. We must abandon 
the insane delusion that a dishonest man or an ignorant pre- 
tender may safely be entrusted with the duties of an honor- 
able and responsible public office. In short, we must see to 
it that candidates for all positions are qualified by natural 
ability, or by special training, to fit them for the office for 
which they may be candidates. 

In order that the dang-erous tendencies of which I have 



— 591 — 

spoken may be arrested, there oug"ht to be a free and untram- 
meled movement of the people to rescue the g-overnment 
from the greed of spoilsmen and from the g"rip of the corpor- 
ate ag-encies which modern legislation Las created. [Ap- 
plause.] 

OUR REMEDY. 

Organization, free discussion, then intelligent action at 
the ballot-box, must be our weapons of protection and defense. 
In addition to this our Constitution oug-ht to be so amended 
as to restrain the executive, legislative and judicial functions, 
of the government, and more clearly define their deleg-ated 
powers. If three-fifths of all the functions now claimed by 
law and custom, and Constitution for our national, state and 
municipal governments were denied them in our organic law, 
and all special legislation prohibited by express provision, of 
the Constitution, as also all authority to incur an indebted- 
ness — bonded or otherwise — in any one year for any pur- 
pose (except defensive war) beyond a limited percentage up- 
on commerce and value of taxable propert}^ in any state or 
county or municipality, we might congratulate ourselves up- 
on having a government approaching more nearly the demo- 
cratic idea. Denying, as I do, the morai. right of an acci- 
dental majority, either in our National Congress or State 
Legislatures or county and municipal government, to mort- 
gage the toil and labor of future generations to enrich or 
benefit the present, I can confidently appeal to all who hear 
me, to unite in demanding of their respective parties such 
promises of reform in this respect as will give assurance of 
better things in the future. For if indebtedness without 
limit can be incurred and special legislation is to continue, 
with all the assumed and conceded functions of government, 
the time is not far distant in which this will be a happy coun- 
try only TO THOSE whose who have large incomes, and a 

COUNTRY OF SORROW FOR ALL WHO LABOR. [ApplaUSe.] 
NATIONAL REFORMS SUGGESTED. 

In addition to the constitutional limitations already sug- 



— 592 — 

g-ested, the new century upon wliicli we -are about to enter 
will demand new and important reforms in every department 
of the public service. We must have a better administration 
in all the executive, leg-islative and judicial departments ol 
national, state and municipal g-overnments. 

And first and most important of ai^i,, we must nomin- 
nate and elect the president by a direct vote op the 
people by ballot, without the intervention of caucuses, 
conventions, presidential electors, or the house of 
Representatives. [Applause.] 

Second — The veto power of the President must be modi- 
fied so that the Executive shall form no part of the law-mak- 
ing power, and a majority of all the Senators and Representa- 
tives elected to Congress, and at the time qualified, shall 
liave authority to pass a bill over the Executive veto. This 
modification of the veto would give the President an oppor- 
tunity to secure a reconsideration of any bill hastily passed 
by Congress, and thus secure all the check Avhich it is safe or 
prudent to give an Executive, as a restraint upon improper 
or inconsiderate legislation. 

Third — We must have an honest civil service reform, 
but this cannot be had, so long as caucuses and conventions 
dictate for whom the people shall vote for President and all 
officials to be elected in the National or State Governments. 

Fourth — We must have reform in the mode and manner 
of conducting all popular elections so as to secure more per- 
fectly the purity of the ballot-box, but so long as the caucus 
system (where ballot-box stuffing was invented) is maintained, 
such reforms are impossible. 

Fifth — We must have reform in National and State leg- 
islation, but this cannot be obtained without constitutional 
restraints, substantially such as I have named, together with 
the right of the minority to an equitable representation in 
all law-making bodies. 

Fifth — We must have reform in the government of all 
cities, so as to defeat ring management and ring plunderers, 
but this cannot be without radical changes in our municipal 
codes. 

Seventh — We want and we must have local self-govern- 
ment for local purposes, in every State or municipality, free 



, —593 — 

from the intermeddling- of the National Government, cither 
throug-h its civil or military departments, recog-nizing- only 
the authority of the courts for revision, and that of the Ex- 
utivc for repelling" or suppressing- force as provided in the 
Constitution. 

When these reforms are secured, as I am hopeful they 
will be, early in this new century, we shall have a g-overn- 
ment free from the obvious and g-laring- defects of the present; 
a g'overnment embodying- more nearly than any other known 
in history, the perfection of the democratic idea — a g-overn- 
ment that shall make liberty, equity and peace a living- fact. 
[Applause.] 

THB DUTY OF EVERY CITIZEN. 

If democracy is to come during- this century in its full- 
ness and completeness, as the fathers of the Constitution con- 
templated it would come ere this, we must have these re- 
forms, for the nation cannot endure forever the corruption 
and conspiracies of corporate wealth, and the monopolies of 
the present. If we would faithfully follow in the pathway 
which the men of the Revolution "blazed out"throug-h our 
political wilderness for us, we cannot afford to fold our arms 
with indifference, and say that the g-overnment may take care 
of itself. Nor should any citizen attempt to escape his fair 
share of the responsibility, but all must dedicate themselves 
to the noble task of vindicating- the memory and purposes of 
the men who made the Constitution and soug-ht to establish 
the truest and best government on earth, a real ideal demo- 
cratic republic. [Applause.] 

WASHINGTON AND LINCOI^N. 

While the century just closed has given our country 
many extraordinary men, men who have* been recognized 
leaders and benefactors of the human race, there are two 
names which stand out with clearer distinctness than all the 
rest and around which there will be forever a brighter halo, 
names that will live as long as human liberty is prized and 
38 



— 594 — 

human history is preserved. No other nation can present 
within a century two such illustrious names as "Washington 
and Lincoln. One was the child of fortune and privileg-e, 
the other the child of povert}' and toil. One is recog-nizcd 
by all the world as the Father of his Country, the other will 
yet be rccoaj-nized b}- all as its Savior. One led us triumphantly 
throug-h the storm}- struggle of our Revolution to independ- 
ence, the other brought us safely through the dark and 
troubled night of our Civil Strife to the haven of union, 
liberty and peace. [Applause.] Never before in human 
history did two men emplo}- their great opportunities with 
more unselfish heroism or consecrate their lives to a higher 
or nobler purpose. If the true greatness of a nation con- 
sists in the noble t^'pes of manhood which it produces, 
America ma)-, without undue boasting, present the names of 
"Washington and Lincoln as types of men pre-eminently en- 
titled to mention among those who honor and adorn the 
world's history. To honor such men and the cause they 
served, and to commend their example to the present and 
future generations, patriotic rejoicing and public demonstra- 
tions, corresponding to our own, are taking place to-day, not 
only in all parts of our own countr}-, but wherever around 
the globe an American citizen may be wandering and two or 
three can be gathered together beneath our radiant flag of 
stripes and stars. [Applause.] But naturally enough to- 
day the great heart of the nation, all who are at home and 
all who arc abroad, turn to Philadelphia and to old Independ- 
ence Hall, where more than a million of her children from 
all parts of the republic, from Virginia and the Carolinas, 
from Massachusetts and New England, from the golden 
shores of the Pacific and from ever}^ State and Territory, 
with uncovered head are now gathered around the old home- 
stead to offer up with reverence and gratitude their thanks- 
giving for the restored Union, and to exchange pledges of 
fidelity for its enduring unity, prosperity and peace. [Ap- 
plause.] Of the material grandeur of the nations which 
have risen and fallen much might be said had I the time and 
3'ou the patience. Their material and martial glory, which 
for a time dazzled the world with its splendor, might to-day 
be contrasted with the true g-lorv of America. 



— 595 — 

Greece and Rome, in succession mistress on the land and 
on the sea, each rich, powerful and luxurious, into whose laps 
the Orient poured its exhaustless treasures and built their 
palaces and monuments which even now, while crumbling- to 
decay, tell the story of their greatness and g-randeur more 
eloquently than human words when clothed in the golden 
thoughts of a master. But each in turn neglected or reject- 
ed the highest and best interest of the state. They made 
monopoly and privilege the rule, and disregarded the rights 
and liberties of the citizen by degrading and enslaving their 
working-men. They thus exalted the material above the 
ideal, and attempted to make "might" more than "right," 
and in so doing built up a materialistic civilization which 
finally wrought their decay and death. How closely we as a 
nation followed in the pathswhich they had trodden in wrong 
and in blood, you and I, alas! know, to our shame and sorrow. 
[Applause.] 

OUR REPUBWC'S FUTUEK. 

With us, as with all nations, history has been repeating 
itself, and so we have learned that only 

" Through weary march and blinding tears, 
And passion heats and battle's din, 
The hoped-for boon, for coming years. 
So long delayed, is ushered in." 

And now, as we enter upon the new century, charged 
•with new obligations and higher responsibilities, let us each 
for himself, resolve to consecrate some portion of his life to 
the noble work of preserving the unity and perpetuity and. 
glory of his country. With heart and soul let everyone write 
upon the tablets of his memory the aspiration and the invo- 
cation of Whittier's immortal Centennial Hymn, and make its 
peaceful, patriotic prayer, his living and his dying faith: 

"Oh, make Thou us through centuries long. 
In peace secure, injustice strong; 
Around our gift of freedom draw 



— 596 — 

The safeguards of Thy rig-hteous law, 
And cast in some diviner mold, 
Let the new cj'cle shame the old! " 



And thus shall the new centur}^ of the Republic tran- 
scend in g-lory and g-randeur the splendid achievements of the 
past. [Long- continued applause.] 

Letter from Rev. T. W. String-er, D. D., Vicksburg, Miss. 
Whea reading- Mr. Ashley's speeches, it is easy to determine 
from whence he drew his poetic inspiration. In writing- of Whittier, 
Mr. Ashlej- says, "that he touched my heart and quickened my life as 
no other man ever did," and then adds, " Whittier, as I saw him, ap- 
proached nearer my conception of the Divine Teacher of Galilee than 
any man I ever knew." This is high praise to give in behalf of any 
man, and tells us why he quotes Whittier in his speeches oftener 
than all others. That there should be profound thought and a 
wealth of simple pathos in any man's orations or stump speeches, 
T. -W. STRINGER, who Walked in the moral and political sunshine and shadow of 
Whittier's pure life, is but natural. Mr. Ashlej-'s speeches all bear internal testimony, 
that like Whittier and the men who made up the advance g-uard of the abolition army, 
his aspirations were, " to break up the surfdom of the world." For pure Americanism, 
for broad and liberal statesmanship and historic accuracy, we are confident tl:e 
speeches and orations in this book will stand the test of time, and prove a valuable 
text-book for students who seek ideal manhood in moral and political philosophy. 

T. W. Strixger. 




CORRESPONDENCE. 



ViCKSBURG, Miss., December 9, 1892 
Hon. J, M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio. 

Dear Sir: Reference is made in some of the speeches 
already stereotyped, to resolutions adopted and addresses 
delivered by you on the Slavery Question, of an earlier date 
than we find in the papers and speeches now before us. 

As our purpose is to make a complete historical compila- 
tion of your early and more important anti-slavery campaign 
and cong-ressional speeches, we request you to have sent to 
us, as soon as possible, such addresses as you may be able to 
find, of a date prior to those we now have in type. 

We also request copy of pamphlet containing- your plan 
of "Co-operation and Profit-Sharing-," of which we have 
read something in railroad papers. Please send with it such 
of your papers and addresses as may have been published, on 
the relation of Capital and Labor. 

Our people are greatly interested in that and kindred 
questions, and your views on that subject would be eagerly 
read by them. 

Trusting that you may find it convenient to comply with 
our request, I have the honor to be. 

Very respectfully yours, for God and the Race, 




Chairman. 



(597) 



— 598— 

Toledo, Ohio, December 19, 1892. 

My Dear Sir: In answer to your favor of the 9th inst., 
I have to say: That after the destruction of all my books 
and papers by fire, I g-athered up from friends a number of 
m}' carl}' anti-slavery campaign speeches, intending" to use the 
facts in them, should I write a book, as I then proposed 
doing, on "The rise and fall of the slave barons." 

I abandoned the idea of writing that book for the reason 
that a second fire destroyed nearly all the papers then col- 
lected, together with the notes I had prepared, and damaged 
by water (as you will see on examining" them) the g"reater 
portion of the remaining papers and newspaper clippings, 
which I now send you. I did not send these with the first in- 
stallment of pamphlets and papers, because I did not want to 
trouble 3-ou with the task of assorting them. Personally, I 
had no time to put them in shape for the printer, nor did I 
think them of importance enough to reprint and preserve. 
If, however, you find an_y thing in them which you may 
regard as worthy of preservation, do so, and consign the re- 
mainder to the waste-basket, as do I not now propose to use 
them m^'self. 

These speeches and fragments of speeches, are all old- 
fashioned anti-slavery appeals, such as in those days were 
everywhere made by our anti-slavery leaders against the 
crime of slavery. The speeches now sent you were made 
during the Freemont and Lincoln campaigns in New York, 
Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and as you will ob- 
serve, they are educational speeches, and deal with historic 
facts and the opinions of eminent men. They were intended 
to answer the vulgar and blind partisan charges made against 
us, and for the purpose of making proselj^tes to the Republi- 
can faith. 

I also send you as requested a pamphlet, which contains 
my plan of "Co-operation and Profit-Sharing," and an ad- 
dress prepared by me on the invitation of the Train Dis- 
patchers' Association of America, which was read at their 
International Convention in Toledo, June 10, 1891. 

I also enclose two other papers of mine on the same 
subject. You will see by reading these papers, that for many 
years I have favored the organization and co-operation of alj 



— 599 — 

kinds and conditions of working--men. But I never have and 
am certain that I never shall, favor such combinations as make 
war upon any class of wag-e-earners, who, for any reason, do 
not see fit to voluntarily become members of any of our 
present labor org-anizations. I favor a co-operation that 
shall not be secret and oath-bound, or be dominated by one or 
more selfish leaders, but an organization that shall be open 
and manly, and just enoug-h to recog-nize the brotherhood of 
the human race. I favor this broad and liberal co-operation 
of labor, because I recognize the fact that the law of our life 
provides, as it is written: " In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat thy bread, till thou return unto the g-round." From 
the beginning- this has been the law g-overning- the conditions 
of human life, and so far as I can seo, that condition must 
continue for all, unto the end. Those who eat the bread of 
idleness, are the only exception to this law. Of necessity, 
therefore, everyone who eats the bread of idleness becomes a 
burden to honest industry, and are either imbeciles, drones, 
parasites or criminals, of whose existence g^overnment must 
take cognizance, and so gfuard and restrain them as to protect 
society individually and collectively from the dang-er and 
crime inseparable from the existence of the classes named. 

I therefore want to see all labor so org-anized that there 
shall be fewer criminals, and fewer men who eat the bread of 
idleness, so that capital will everywhere beg-ladto co-operate 
with, and to secure the aid of all manly wag-e-workers of abil- 
ity and character, and be ready to divide with all such work- 
ers an equitable proportion of the nat profits produced by the 
SKiLi, and TOIL of each. 

In this ag-e of labor-saving- inventions and industrial 
machinery, v^ith steam and electricity for motive power, near- 
ly all of which is owned by associated capital, it becomes a 
necessity for the wage-workers of the world' to co-operate 
with capital on a stipulated agreement for a portion of the 
net profits, and thus secure beyond question an equitable di- 
vision of the wealth produced by the united efforts of labor 
and capital. 

As I see it, " co-operation and arbitration " is thesig-n in 
which the wage-worker of the world is certain ultimatelv to 
win. 



— 600 — 

In any business requiring- the joint labor of ten or more 
men, the result outlined can with certainty be secured, and 
with mathematical accuracy, to every worker without his in- 
vesting- a dollar of cash capital. He can do this by joining- 
others in organizing- the business in which he desires to en- 
g-age, on the plan of profit-sharing which I propose in the 
pamphlet I now send you. 

The adoption of any of the recognized plans of profit- 
sharing will make strikes inexcusable and practically im- 
possible among intelligent, honest men. 

With intelligent co-operation on the lines indicated, to- 
gether with the use of reliable savings banks and the aid 
which properly organized building and loan associations can 
give, there is no danger in this country of any sober, indus- 
trious wage-worker becoming poorer, while everywhere a 
prudent man may with reasonable certainty earn and own 
his own home. Let every colored man live within his in- 
come, and in a short time he can own his own home. 

In all my speeches, beginning v/ith our early anti-slavery 
struggle, you will find that I uniformly made my appeals for 
the rights of all labor, black and white, and demanded for 
each an equitable share in the property which his toil created. 
You will also find that all the speeches of our early anti-slavery 
leaders were logical and unanswerable appeals for the rights 
of labor, without regard to nativity, nationality or race. 

Yours truly, 

j. m. ashl,ey. 
Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D., 

Chairman Publication Committee. 



EXTRACTS. 



Closing Portion of Stump Speech Delivered in the Grove 

NEAR MONTPELIER, WlLLIAMS CoUNTY, OhIO, 

September, 1856, by James M. Ashley. 



And now, fellow- citizens, I know you will agree that 
I have said all that need be said at this time, in condemna- 
tion of the Kansas-Nebraska infamy and its authors, and in 
denunciation of the efforts of the slave baron conspirators to 
nationalize slaver}', and to make it constitutional and per- 
petual in the land of Washing-ton. 

Nor need I say more than I have said, in behalf of the 
election of General Fremont, our candidate for President, or 
for the re-election of our worthy candidate for Congress, Hon. 
Richard Mott. And I have said all that is necessary in de- 
fense of Governor Chase and his administration. 

But for the fact that each of the gentlemen named have 
been so coarsely and offensively assailed during the canvass 
all over the State, and especially in this congressional dis- 

Letter irom Hon. Charles S. Morris, New York City. 

This is by far the boldest and ablest of all the anti-slavery stump speeches of the- 
Fremont campaign which we have read. It was delivered when M r. Ashley was not yet 
thirty years old. At the time of its delivery, th^ pro-slavery hatred of the negro in the 
North rag-ed with fanatical madness. Slave pirate-ships were then fitted out in the 
city of New York, and under our fiag plied their man-slavery trade with comparative 
safety, and sometimes landed their cargoes of human chattels, direct from Africa, at 
our Southern ports in broad daylight, in defiance of law and government. 

To deliver such a speech, at such a time, required a high order of both moral and 
physical courage. 

We have never read an argument, so clear and strong, against the right of Coor 
grass to pass a fugitive slave law. Charles S. Morris. 

(601) 



— 602 — 

trict, by the opposition newspapers and stump speakers, I 
should not be warranted in taking" up your time and mine to- 
day, in answering" them, as I have felt constrained to do. 

[At this point, some one in the audience shouted out, 
"You have not explained the corrupt barg^ain and sale by 
which Chase was elected to the United States Senate over 
Tom Ewing". Suppose j-ou try 3'our hand at that."] 

Mr. Ashley stopped, and turning- to the Chairman of the 
meeting", said, "Do you wish me to answer such questions?" 
The Chairman nodding- assent, said, " As we have nothing- 
to withhold or conceal, I think the people would be g-lad to 
have you answer." 

"Well, Mr. Chairman," continued Mr. Ashley, " if you 
and this audience desire me to answer the challeng-e just made, 
or to answer any other questions, even thoug^h they are not 
pertinent to this campaign (as the one in hand is not) 1 shall 
do so. As our Chairman has ver}' properly remarked, ' we 
have nothing- to withhold or conceal.' 

Mr. Chairman, without reserve and without qualification 
I deny that there was a corrupt barg-ain and sale when Mr. 
Chase was elected to the Senate of the United States. [Ap- 
plause.] I was present in Columbus and participated in the 
conferences which were held by the anti-slavery Democrats 
and the Free-soilers prior to the election of Mr. Chase, and I 
can say to you that so far from there having- been a corrupt 
barg-ain between the Democrats and the Free-soilers, that it 
was one of the fairest and most honorable political ag-ree- 
ments ever made in this State or in any State. [Applause.] 

You all remember that the "Free-soilers" held the bal- 
ance of power. It is no secret that these Free-soilers were 
willing- to make an alliance with the Whig-s and elect Hon. 
Joshua R. Gidding-s, an anti-slavery Whig-, or with the Dem- 
ocrats and elect Mr. Chase. 

Dr. Townsend, of Lorain, and Mr. Morse, of Ashtabula, 
held the balance of power. • One of these g-entlemen was a 
" Whig-Free-Soiler " and resided in Mr. Gidding-s's district, 
and the other a " Democratic-Free-Soiler" from Lorain 
County, and each stood ready to vote for any reliable anti- 
slavery man of character and abilitv, who could be elected 
Senator, whether he was of Whig- or Democratic antecedents. 



— 603 — 

The Whig's would not vote for Mr. Gidding-s, and the 
Democrats ag-reed to vote for Mr. Chase, who was a well- 
known anti-slavery Democrat. And that was all there was of 
that so-called " barg-ain and sale." [Applause.] 

The Democrats did the same thing- in Massachusetts, and 
elected Charles Sumner, an anti-slaverj' Democrat, to the 
United States Senate, and John P. Hale, of New Hampshire^ 
and other well-known anti-slavery Democrats in other States. 

I know all about the so-called " barg-ain and sale '■' which 
was made at the time Mr. Chase was elected Senator, and I 
declare to you that it was as manly and unselfish a political 
agreement as was ever entered into by the leaders of any 
party. And I am g-lad to be able to say, that the ag-reement 
then made was honorably and in g-ood faith carried out by th^ 
Democrats. [Applause.] At that time, I was in full fellow- 
ship with the Democratic party, and it was then well known 
that I was an anti-slavery Democrat, and as hostile to slavery 
as I am now. And there were, in those days, thousands of 
Democrats of my way of thinking-. A majority of the Demo- 
cratic party in Ohio, and in all the free States, wete out- 
spoken anti-slavery men, as witness the platforms adopted by 
all the regular Democratic State conventions in every Northern 
State, except Iowa, denouncing slavery as a crime, and 
demanding, as we did here in Ohio, that the evil be "eradi- 
cated." 

But for Democratic votes, the Wilmot Proviso, which 
prohibits slavery in all our national Territories, could not have 
been passed by the lower house of the Congress of the United 
States. [Applause.] 

And but for the passage of the infamous compromise 
measure of 1850, into which the North was betrayed by her 
faithless representatives of both parties, I believe that the 
Democratic party of the free States would to-da}' have been 
the great anti-slavery Jeffersonian party of this country, as 
it ought to have been, and in my opinion would have been, 
but for our bctra^^al at the hands of professed Democrats. 
The humiliation of both the old parties to-day is awfui. and 
their abasement appalling. But to go back to the Chase 
election. 

The Free-soilers agreed to vote with, and secure to the 



— 604 — 

Democrats, substantially, all the offices whicli tlie leg-islature 
under the old Constitution was authorized to appoint or 
ele-ctj on the sing-le condition that the Democrats would vote 
with the Free-soilers for the repeal of the infamous black 
laws of this State. [Applause.] Perhaps the person who 
interrupted me, would like to have those villainous statutes 
which were then repealed, ag-ain re-enacted into laws. But 
whether he would or not, I brand him, or an}^ man who makes 
the charg"e of corrupt barg-ain and sale in connection with 
the election of Mr. Chase to the United States Senate, as 
either an ig^norant or vicious calumniator. 

I put this plaster on the foul lips of every such calumnia- 
tor, confident that when removed, it will take the skin off 
with it. [Laug-hter and applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, 3'ou know that I am not a candidate for 
any office, and I do not propose to be a candidate for some 
years to come, if ever. I certainly shall not be a candidate 
until I am older and have more experience than I have to-day. 

In view of the fact that I am not a candidate, and not 
likely to be, I should perhaps be justified, if I passed b}' in 
silent contempt, the unscrupulous and persistent assaults, 
which have been made upon me personall}-, wherever I have 
spoken in the district. Indeed, I should have passed them 
by without a word, but for what occurred yesterday and to- 
day. A number of vicious and ig-norant brag-g-arts, who with 
an assumption of knowledg-e which they have not, and a 
cheek as brazen as that of a professed saint when assuming- 
the livery of heaven, have here on the g-round to-day, in my 
hearing- and in lang-uag-e most foul, charg-ed our candidates, 
and all our leading- public men with being- disunionists, and 
men who as often as the}- took an oath to support the Constitu- 
tion committed the crime of perjur}'. 

I have also been charg-ed since I came upon the gfround^ 
with being- a " disunionist, an abolitionist, an ag-ent of the 
underg-round railroad and an amalg-amationist, who loved the 
black race better than I did m}^ own race, and that if I had 
the power, I would liberate at once and without compensa- 
tion to the slave barons, all the slaves of the South and turn 
them loose, so that they mig-ht come up here into Ohio, if 
they pleased, and into other Northern States, and compete with 



— 605 — 

and displace all white men who labor." And to this kind of 
loud-mouthed blustering-, there has been added a deluge of 
that coarse and vulgar vituperation which is born of ignorance 
and hate, and a brutality so gross and devilish as to excuse, if 
not to justify, a belief in the doctrine of total dep^avit3^ [Ap- 
plause.] 

I will be pardoned, therefore, if when stating the position 
of our candidates, I also state clearly and distinctly my own 
position. 

First, then, as to our candidate for President. General 
Fremont is a man who might properly be classed with the 
most conservative Republicans. He states frankly, that he 
does not propose to interfere with slavery in the States where 
it now exists, but simply pledges himself to resist its spread 
into new Territories, nothing more, nothing less. [Applause.] 

Mr. Mott, as you all know, is a Quaker, and his religion 
makes it imperative that he be an anti-slavery man, and with- 
out concealment and without compromise to stand firmly in 
opposition to slavery the world over. [Applause.] 

As for myself, I am free to say to you and to all who care 
to know my opinions, that I am opposed to the enslavement' 
in any country on God's green earth, of any man or any race of 
men, however friendless or poor, whatever their race or color, 
and I do not admit that the Constitution of my country recog- 
nizes property in man. [Applause.] 

V/hen John Wesley denounced slavery " as the sum of all 
villainies," it was to me a living truth, uttered in as few and 
fitting words as a clergyman could employ, and I who am but 
a layman, brand it as the blackest of crimes and denounce it 
as the most revolting infamy that ever afflicted mankind or 
cursed the earth. [Applause.] It has filled the world with 
injustice and indescribable suffering and sorrow, and its crimes 
are now moving all unperverted human hearts to a united 
and determined effort for its destruction and the banishment 
from our country of this execrable commerce in the bodies 
and souls of men. [Applause.] 

Often and often when a boy in Kentucky, it has moved 
tny heart to rebel against it; and when involuntarily forced 
to witness its frightful punishments and shocking brutality, 
there has come up from my heart to my lips the pathetic 



— 606 — 

couplet of Burns, and in my helplessness I have cried out, 
"O Lord, how true it is that 

' Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn.' " 

[Applause.] 

During my speech at Hicksville, over in Defiance County^ 
yesterday, when presenting- an abstract proposition of inter- 
est, as I believed, to all Americans (and to the negro if he is 
a man), a cross-roads statesman impudently cried out, " I see 
wool in that fellow's teeth," although up to that moment I 
had not uttered one word about the negro. 

The northern sleuth-hound of the slave baron was on the 
watch, and true to his blind partisanship and brutal instincts 
gave the recognized yelp. [Applause,] So here to-day, the 
babbling cross-roads statesman is on guard, ready blindly to 
defend the supposed interests of the slave barojis of the South 
who are his political masters. [Applause.] And I affirm, 
and do so slowly and deliberately so that there shall be no mis- 
understanding what I say or mean, that all such men, whether 
they know it or not, are allies of the conspirators whose crimes 
against humanity and our democratic government are at this 
very hour laying broad and deep the conditions which are cer- 
tain to ultimate in a revolution of fire and blood that must 
end, either in the destruction of this Union and Government, 
or in the abolition of the institution of slavery which the 
slave barons are to-day madly attempting to fasten upon the 
nation for all time. [Applause.] Morally and logicxilly» 
there is no escape from this result. As I see it, submission 
to the slave barons or revolution is as inevitable as death. I 
pray that it may be a peaceful revolution, with ballots instead 
of bullets. [Applause.] 

Let us not deceive ourselves, nor attempt to deceive others. 
"God is not mocked, and his judgment will not sleep for- 
ever." [Applause.] 

I often wonder how your northern-born men can show 
such hostility to the black man. Singularly enough, I find 
here in the North, as in the South, that the hatred of the 



— 607 -- 

negro is not that he is black or of mixed blood, but because he 
is a slave. It is the hatred born of the spirit of caste, and not 
the hatred of color. Wherever the neg-ro is free and is edu- 
cated and owns property, you will find him respected and 
treated with consideration by the slave barons of the South, 
and by Northern men as well; especially is this so in the South, 
if the black man is himself the owner of slaves. 

When a boy, I knew two free neg-ro planters in Louisiana 
who owned a number of slaves. One of them, I was informed 
owned over a hundred, some of whom would easily pass for 
white men as readily, certainly, as some of the Bourbon leaders 
whom I know in this county. [Laug-hter.] When these 
black planters came to New Orleans they were greeted by the 
wholesale merchants, with whom they dealt, as cordially as 
if they had been white men. A well-filled decanter of old 
Kentucky bourbon (with a show of tansy in it) was as in- 
variably set out for them as for the white planters, and there 
was no pretext of being- shocked because they were black. 
One of these neg-ro planters was said to be the owner of a man 
who was known to all the surrounding- planters to be a pure 
white man, without a drop of neg-ro or mixed blood in his 
veins; yet no white slave baron interfered to question this 
black planter's right to hold this white man as a slave, for 
the simple reason that the raising- of such a question mig-ht 
bring- up in court, where the common law prevailed, the ticklish 
and technical leg-al question, as to the "title " by which other 
human being-s of all colors and shades were held as slaves in 
the State. 

An examination of the trials in cases where white per- 
sons, throug-h friends, had broug-ht suit in the courts of 
Southern States, to obtain their freedom from slavery, and the 
judicial decisions reported,will disclose the startling- fact that 
many white persons, without a taint of mixed blood, have 
been seized by the slave trading- land-pirates and branded and 
sold into slavery, and that when once in the hands of the 
slave barons, they resisted in courts and evi!ry where their 
surrender, even when knowing- them to be white and free- 
born. So you see, that as Hosea Big-elow has it 



-608— 



" Slavery aint o' nary color, 

'Taint the hide that makes it wus, 
All it kers for in a feller, 

'S just to make him fill its pus.'* 

Northern mercenaries, especially Northern slave owners 
(of whom there are more in our great cities than we know), 
do not act differently. 

Not long ago, a merchant of Bangor, in the State of 
Maine, walked into church one Sundaj^ morning with his 
wife and daughter, and a big six-foot negro, as black as the 
ace of spades, whom he deferentially passed into his pew and 
seated next to his wife. A sanctimonious Bourbon in the 
seat behind him was greatly shocked at this defilement of the 
church, and reaching over whispered to his neighbor and 
said, " How dare you bring a damned nigger into this church 
and seat him in 3^our pew next to your wife ? " His friend, 
turning to him, quietly whispered in his ear, and said, " He 
is not a nigger, he is a Haytian and worth six millions." As 
soon as this negro-hating Christian could recover from the 
surprise of this unexpected announcement, he whispered back 
to his neighbor and said, "After the services are over please 
introduce me." [Laughter and applause.] So you see, that 
in the North and South alike, circumstances alter cases. 
[Laughter.] 

The flunky Bourbons in this country would do just as 
their brother Bourbon in Maine did. [Laughter and ap- 
plause.] So long as any man or woman can be held as a 
slave, even though just imported from Africa, they are not 
offensive to the closest contact, and to the most intimate re- 
lations, as is evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of half- 
breeds and octoroons in the South. [Applause.] And then, 
nearly all the slave barons were, themselves, nursed and cared 
for while children by black slave mothers. While slaves, the 
odor arising from any negro — on the hottest day in August 
— is to the delicate nostrils of the slave baron like the perfume 
from the attar of roses; but if these same black persons are 
free, that moment the odor arising from them congests the 



— 609 — 

sensitive olfactories of every slave baron, and paralyzes his 
palpitating- heart. [Laug-hter and applause.] 

Mr. Chairman, when any one quotes the Bible, as it has 
been quoted to me here to-day, in an attempt to excuse, or 
justify, the enslavement and chattelizing- of men, for whose 
salvation the Man of Sorrows died, I simply recog-nize and 
treat such a man as I would a person who was insane or a 
convicted malefactor. [Applause.] 

The clerg-j^man, who, in Boston, announced "that he 
would send his own mother back into slavery if she were an 
escaped fug-itive, and the Constitution required it," is a fit- 
ting- representative of that class of pious parvenues, who thus 
quote the Bible, and "steal the livery of heaven to serve the 
devil in." [Applause.] 

With shame I am compelled in this year of g-race 1856 to 
confess that this bastard clerg-yman has his disciples in Ohio. 
Can you conceive, fellow-citizens, of a blacker villainy, or one 
more brutal and vile, than the sending* of one's own mother 
back into slavery, law or no law. Constitution or no Consti- 
tution? ["We can't."] And yet I have seen with my own eyes, 
the well-known half-brothers and half-sisters of slaveholding" 
families, sold on the auction block to the highest bidders by 
professedly Christian men. [" Shame !"] Do you wonder that 
the hearts and consciences of the best men and women of our 
country are outrag"ed and shocked at such infernal crimes? 
["No."] The only wonder to me is, that the nation does not 
rise in overwhelming" force and abolish such diabolical vil- 
lainy, and properly punish the monsters who are g-uilty of 
such fearful wrong-s. [Applause.] And there are other 
crimes inseparable from any form of slavery, quite as brutal- 
izing- and revolting- as the selling- of half-brothers and half- 
sisters; but I will not now attempt to describe them. It is 
enoug-h for you and me to know that such frightful crimes are 
but part and parcel of a system which demands the enactment 
of such inhuman laws, touching- the ownership and g-overn- 
ment of slaves, as you will find in the statute-books of all the 
Southern States. Let me read from a book which I hold in 
my hand, a few paragraphs (and not by any means the most 
offensive). These paragraphs are from some of the so-called 
39 



— 610 — 

State laws and judicial decision<^ of slave States. They will 
g-ive you a partial conception at least of the venality and 
brutality of slavery, and I hope a clearer insig-ht into its 
moral degradation. Such laws and their interested judicial 
interpretation, by judg-cs who themselves are slave owners, 
present, as I see it, a compilation of villainy enacted into law, 
without a parallel in the history of any civilized people. 
Listen to this, an 1 you will not wonder at what Jefferson 
said, when he declared "that he trembled for his country 
when he thought of the neg-ro, and remembered that God was 
just." [Applause.] 

I/ct me read what the slave barons have enacted into 
law. 

"Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, represented and 
adjudg-cd in law, to be chattels personal, in the hands of 
their owners or possessors, and their executors, administra- 
tors and assig-ns, to all intents, constructions and purposes 
whatsoever." — Laws of South Carolina, 2d Brev. Dig-est 229, 
Prince's Digest 446. 

"Slaves cannot make a contract, cannot own or hold 
property, cannot even contract a marriag-e." — Prince's Di- 
gest, page 28. 

"The cardinal principle of slavery is, that the slave is 
not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things, as 
an article of propert}-, a chattel personal, and these facts 
obtained as undoubted law, in all these States." — Stroud, 
page 23. 

"It is plain, that the dominion of the master is as un- 
limited as that which is tolerated by the laws of any civilized 
country, in relation to brute animals and quadrupeds." — 
Stroud, page 24. 

" In case the personal property of a ward shall consist 
in specific articles, such as slaves, working beasts, plate, 
books, and so forth, the Court may at any time pass an order 
of sale." — Laws of Maryland. 

And, as if this diabolical villain}-, in the form of law, 
were not enough, there was added to it, on demand of the 
slave barons, enactment after enactment, in all the slave 
States (and I blush to own it, here in Ohio and in a number 
of the so-called free States), which denied to the negro, or to 



— 611 — 

any persons with negro blood in their veins, the rig-ht to 
testify in any court of justice ag-ainst the most brutal and 
degraded white man — even if he had committed the most 
revolting- offenses ag-ainst life or property, or the sanctity of 
their wives and daug-hters. 

We had just such barbarous enactments on our statute- 
books, here in Ohio, placed there on demand of the slave 
barons. These laws were very properly called the "black 
laws" of Ohio, and these accursed laws mig-ht have been on 
our statute-books to-day, but for the demand of the old anti- 
slavery g-uard for their repeal, and the honorable ag-reement, 
of which I have spoken, that which the manly Free-soilers 
made with the anti-slavery Democrats, at the time Chase was 
elected Senator, and thus secured their repeal and removed 
forever this foul blot from the name and fair fame of our 
State. [Applause.] And I do not believe that there lives 
within our fair borders to-day, a creature, claiming- to be a 
man, however brutal and brazen, who would dare to rise in 
the leg-islature and propose to re-enact into law, the villainous 
black statutes which we then repealed. [Applause.] Even 
the cross-roads statesmen, whom I encountered yesterday and 
to-day, would not have the unblushing- effrontery to do such 
an infamous act — althoug-h they have had the hardihood to 
say to me, that they would aid in hunting- down and captur- 
ing- an escaping- slave. [Applause.] 

The land-slave pirate knew, that he could not safely nor 
successfully carry on his infamous kidnapping- trade of steal- 
ing- free persons and selling- them into slavery, if the persons 
he was kidnapping- were permitted to testify, even before a 
slave baron's court and a jury on which, as a rule, th-ere 
would be secured one or more silent partners of the kidnapper. 

For this reason the land-slave pirate had such so-called 
laws as I have described enacted in all the slave States and in a 
majority of the free States, and in both Northern and Southern 
States he had these infamous laws supplemented with others, 
such as would facilitate and render more secure his execrable 
traffic in the bodies and souls of men. Thus they had laws 
passed in all the slave States, which invited every unhung* 
villain, to arrest any person of so-called African descent whom 
he mig-ht decoy within the jurisdiction of the rig-ht kind of a 



— 612 — 

court and county ofS.cials, where he could have the free per- 
sons so seized, thrown into jail without a hearing-, under the 
pretext that the person thus arrested was an escaped slave. 
After he was safely landed in prison, he would be advertised 
as the law directed as "a runaway slave taken up," as you 
advertise stray cattle in here Ohio, in which advertisement the 
owner of said person would be " of&cially notified " to come 
forward within the time named in the advertisement, claim 
such person, prove property, pa}' charges and take him away. 
This advertisement was often no more than a written notice 
posted upon the prison door, because in many counties of the 
Southern States there are no newspapers published. 

In this notice the so-called "owner" and the public 
would be bluntly informed that the person so taken up on 
suspicion, would be sold into slavery for life to pay his "jail 
fees." 

Mr. Chairman, the theory on which this blackest of 
crimes is soug-ht to be justified is, that the person so arrested 
is the slave, or ought to be the slave of some one, and if not, 
that it is dangerous to slavery as an institution, to permit 
such a free person to be at large. The example would be bad, 
and might result in other slaves escaping. He is, therefore, 
taken up as you would take up a stray horse, with this differ- 
ence, that the horse is not sent to the county jail, while in all 
the slave States the human being is. After he is kept in jail 
the length of time prescribed by law, he is publicly sold into 
slavery for life — and his posterity after him — to pay his in- 
voluntary indebtedness to the State in the shape of "jail 
fees "charged for keeping him. ["Horrible! Infamous!"] A 
majority of the persons thus sold, so far as my observation 
went, were free persons (and I have seen a number of such 
cases), and they were sold, as a rule, to the very land-slave 
pirates who caused their arrest. In this way, thousands of 
persons, born beneath our flag and as free as you or I, have 
been seized and sold into slavery for life, and to-day are toil- 
ing for slave barons in the rice- and cotton-fields of the South; 
and if 3'ou or anj^one for j^ou, or for them, should go down 
there with the conclusive proof of the freedom of any such 
person held as a slave, under color of a sheriff's title such as 
I have described, and attempt by legal process in any court to 



— 613 — 

have them released, you, or those jou sent down there oti 
such a mission of justice, would be fortunate if you got away 
with j-our lives. [Cries of " Horrible! Infamous!"] 

True, as your hearts involuntarily cry out, the crime of 
enslaving- men is " horrible and infamous," for slavery is the 
spirit of piracy, the spirit of avarice and the spirit of despot- 
ism combined. It is a heartless and soulless trinity, and 
"the sum of all villainies," as declared by the g^reat and good 
Wesley. [Applause.] 

During- the Revolution and in the early days of the re- 
public, a majority of all the great men of the South, who 
battled on the field and in the forum for our independence, 
especially the great men of Virginia, Maryland and North 
Carolina, were outspoken in their opposition to the institu- 
tion of slavery. [Applause.] And yet, within a few years, 
this monster wrong, this crime of the centuries, has fastened 
its fangs into our national life, and streng-thened and g-rown, 
until it has demoralized and debauched a large part of the 
entire nation, north and south. [Applause.] In truth, we 
have reached such a depth of moral degradation, that the 
Chief Executive and our highest judicial tribunals, state and 
national, are known to be the open apologists and defenders of 
this revolting- villainy. [Applause.] In the eyes of all civ- 
ilized peoples, we are, to-day, reg-arded as a nation of liars 
and hj^pocrites, professing- devotion to the principles of liberty 
and justice, while pirating" on the land and on the sea for 
men, women and children, with the avowed purpose of reduc- 
ing- to slavery all the weak and defenseless who can labor, 
whether Africans, South Sea Islanders, Chinese Coolies, In- 
dians or white men. [Applause.] 

Mr. Chairman, I must not forget to state that by the 
laws and judicial decisions of all the slave States, the child 
follows the condition of the mother. It would have been 
fatal to the legal ownership of half-brothers and sisters, and 
ultimately to the institution of slavery, if the law had pro- 
vided that the child of a slave 'mother should follow the 
condition of the father. With such a law, in a hundred 
years or less (as the amalgamation of the races now g-oing- on 
in the South shovvs), there would result universal emancipa- 
tion. [Applause.] Let me read one more paragraph : 



— 614 — 

"Two hundred j'ears have sanctioned and sanctified negro 
slaves as property. The moment the incontestable fact is 
admitted that negro slaves are property, the law g-overning" 
movable propert}' attaches itself to them, and secures to the 
owner the right of carrying- them from one State to another, 
where they are recog^nized as property." 

Can two hundred years, or any number of years, "sanc- 
tion and sanctif}' " oppression and wrong", so as to make 
oppression just, and wrong" right? [Applause.] 

This monstrous and indefensible proposition was deliber- 
ately affirmed, in the lang-uag-e just quoted, by a no less 
person than Henry Clay, of Kentuck}-, in a speech delivered 
by him in the Senate of the United States, February 7, 1839. 

If then, a slave is property and a chattel, and not a man, 
he cannot make a contract, and so cannot at law be in default 
for service. If, as a chattel, he can be leg"all3' in default for 
any service required, then the slave baron ma}- leg"ally go 
into court and sue his mule for services, whenever his mule 
balks and kicks, or runs away and refuses to render the " ser- 
vice" which his owner claims. [Laug-hter and applause.] 

The confounding" of the word "person" as used in the 
Constitution, with the word "slave," which is not once used 
in the Constitution, has from the first given the slave barons 
much trouble. And but for the fact that national and State 
judges, claiming to own "persons" as propert}-, were care- 
fully and craftily selected by the slave barons for all officials, 
and especially for all judicial positions — State and national 
— no such perverted and dishonest construction of our 
national Constitution would have been possible. [Applause.] 
On the contrary, I affirm, that if our national Constitution, 
together with the preamble and the debates in the great con- 
vention which framed it, including the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, had at an}' time, within the first half-centur}^ of 
our national life, been submitted for judicial interpretation, 
to a commission, impartially selected from the most eminent 
jurists and lawj-ers in the world, say one or two each from 
France, Germany, Australia, Italy and Switzerland (omitting 
England if you will), no such perverted and rascally inter- 
pretation as we have had from our courts, affirming the right 



— 615^ 

of propert}^ in man, could have been given by such a court, or 
judicial commission. [Applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, having- deliberately perverted and judi- 
cially misinterpreted our national Constitution, the slave bar- 
ons next proceed to debauch and degrade the Christian church 
by perverting and misinterpreting the Bible, so as to make 
the church the bulwark of American slavery, and the Bible 
its most formidable citadel. 

The sight of a slave pirate captain on a ship in mid ocean 
crowded with slaves just captured in Africa, calling his pirate 
crew together on his quarter deck Sunday morning, and read- 
ing and expounding the Bible to them, and proclaiming (be- 
tween drinks) that slavery was a divine institution, would be 
a spectacle less revolting than that of the Boston clergyman, 
of whom I have spoken, and not a whit more revolting than 
many of the acts which may be witnessed every day of the 
year in all the Southern States. [Applause.] But I deny that 
the Bible anj^where authorizes or justifies the crime of Amer- 
ican slavery. Whatever injustice and oppression may have 
been, and perhaps was authorized, or tolerated, under the 
Mosaic dispensation, it was, as I read and understand the 
Bible, abolished and prohibited under the dispensation and 
teaching of Christ. But if the Mosaic code is still in force, 
then I demand that "cities of refuge" shall be established 
all over this broad land of ours, as numerous and as near each 
other, as the cities described in the books of Numbers and 
Deuteronomy, and that when an escaped slave reaches any of 
such cities, he shall not be given up to anyone who may claim 
to own him as he must now be given up here in Ohio,or in any 
free State, if we obey the infamous fugitive-slave law; a law 
which I never have obeyed, and by God's help I never shall. 
[Applause.] And then, if you will turn to Leviticus, you 
will find, in every fiftieth year, under the Mosaic code, that 
there was a year of jubilee, in which year every slave was 
free. [Applause.] If the Mosaic code is to be maintained, 
then I demand that we have a year of jubilee in this country 
now. [Applause.] We have never had a year of jubilee 
since the first slaves were Janded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 
1620, more than two hundred years ago, in which time we 
should have had four distinct half-century years of jubilee, if 



— 616 — 

the Mosaic code is to hold. [Applause.] I need hardly tell 
you, fellow-citizens, that if I had the power, we would have a 
g-eneral jubilee in this j-ear of grace 1856. [Applause.] The 
g-entlemen on my right, who good-naturedly interrupts me, 
says, "there is no danger of such a jubilee in this country 
during his or my lifetime." That is more than probable, I 
must admit, but it is not impossible, and it is no less his duty 
and mine to work for it, though it may not be probable. [Ap- 
plause.] I am an optimist, and a more hopeful man than my 
friend. I believe that the right is certain to triumph, and I 
hope to live to see the day when my country shall be free 
from the blighting curse of human bondage. I know not how 
nor when the time will come, but I have an abiding faith, that 
somehow, sometime, the end will be. The God-defying judg- 
ments of our Supreme Court must be reversed, and the declar- 
ation of the grand men, who founded this Government, that 
"the national Constitution did not recognize property in 
man," must be made universal law. [Applause.] If this can 
be done in no other way, it will become our duty to amend 
our national Constitution and all our State constitutions, so 
as to secure to every living human soul within our gates, 
their right to life, liberty and property, and it must also be 
amended so as to secure to all States, representatives in Con- 
gress, and in State legislatures — in proportion to the votes 
cast in each, to the end that all the people, white and color- 
ed, shall be fairly represented in State legislative assemblies 
and in the national Congress. [Applause.] If this proposi- 
tion is now a recognized duty, touching an amendment to our 
national Constitution, it must also become a duty touching 
an amendment to the State constitution of Ohio, and all State 
constitutions. South as well as North. [Applause.] The 
time has gone by, when the Government of the nation, or 
that of any State, can, without protest, be dominated over by 
the minority, and be administedby organized force and fraud, 
in the interest of a privileged class. [Applause and cries of 
"that's so." [ 

For nearly half a century, less than three hundred 
thousand slave barons have ruled this nation morally and 
politically, including a majority of the Northern States, with 
a rod of iron. They have rode, and to-day are riding over 



— 617 — 

us politically, and, as it were, on horseback — booted and 
spurred — and appropriately armed, as the recogfnized cham- 
pions of the barbarism which they so fitting-ly represent. 
Before the advancing- march of these slave barons, with 
bloodhounds and shot-gun, the great body of Northern pub- 
lic men, claiming" to be statesmen, the pulpit and the press, 
lawyers and judg-es, merchants and political camp-followers 
— including- all office-holders and office-seekers — have bowed 
down, and are to-day bowing- down, with their hands on 
their mouths and their mouths in the dust^with an abase- 
ment as servile as that of a vanquished, spiritless people, to 
their conquerors. [Applause.] This domination of the 
slave baron is to-day so demoralizing- and so servile, that I 
fear we are doomed to see, in this year of grace 1856, the 
election to the Presidency of that prince of all Northern 
Janus-faced politicians, James Buchanan. 

[At this point Mr. Ashley was again interrupted and 
asked, " why he did not, as a delegate to the Philadelphia con- 
vention, vote for the nomination of Judge McLean, if he 
had any doubt of Fremont's election." In reply, Mr. Ashley 
said:] I answer you frankly, that I do not believe in nomi- 
nating a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States 
for the Presidency, nor do I believe in nominating the judge 
of any court of record — national or State — for a political 
office. I know Judge McLean personally, and regard him as 
among our ablest and purest public men, but I did not want 
him nominated by the Republican party for President. [Ap- 
plause.] Had Robert Rantoul, of Massachusetts, been liv- 
ing, I should have voted for his nomination as soon as 
Mr. Chase's name was withdrawn. As it v^as, after it became 
clear that Governor Chase could not be nominated, I voted for 
the nomination of General Fremont, because I felt confident 
that he would best unite all the elements of opposition to 
Buchanan. [Applause.] Here Mr. Ashley was again ques- 
tioned and asked, "Is not Fillmore abetter representative of 
the South than Buchanan?" Mr. Ashley said: I answer 
you without reservation or qualification, that he is not. 
Mr. Fillmore is nothing but a "deco}^ duck," and is simply 
being used by the slave barons to catch Northern doughface 
suckers and political eunuchs. [Applause.] His abasement 



— 618— 

and self-stultification became so complete, when, as the act- 
ing- President, he approved the fug-itive-slave bill, that the 
slave barons know he can no long-er be of service to them, 
except as a " decoy duck," and they are now working- him for 
all he is worth, just as they used and worked Daniel Webster 
without scruple and without a blush. [Applause.] From 
the day he delivered his 7th of March speech, the slave 
barons did not pretend to use Webster even as a "decoy 
duck," but simply treated him as a "dead duck," and as he 
deserved to be treated for his betrayal of Massachusetts and 
the North. [Applause.] No, sir, do not deceive 5'ourself, 
the slave barons know their men; they know that Mr. 
Buchanan is the safest, most compliant, and most available 
Northern man for their purposes. They tested him as 
United States Senator, as chief of the conspirators who 
sig-ned the Ostend Manifesto, when he was minister to Eng-- 
land, and ag-ain when he was Secretary of State. In no posi- 
tion ever held by him did he once disappoint, on the slavery 
question, his exacting- masters. [Applause.] All his life he 
has been a suave, putty-man, ready and willing- to be molded 
and stamped with the brand of the slave barons. [Applause.] 
Shame and sorrow must come to us as a people, and over- 
whelm us with disg-race and dishonor as a nation, if such 
men as he are charged with the administration of our 
Government. [Applause.] Let no man be deceived. We 
cannot escape forever the doom that awaits us, if, as a nation, 
we deliberately continue in our present g-uilt and infamy. 
[Applause.] But, thank God, I know that we shall not con- 
tinue in our present guilty, downward course. I have an 
abiding faith that the hour of our deliverance is nearer than 
the world knows, or dreams. With God on our side, I have 
often said, that one is a majority. [Applause.] And you and 
I know thatto-da}^ we have millions of true and brave men on 
our side, such as old Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, who 
officially refused to deliver up a fugitive slave, and of whom 
Whittier sung in words that will never die: 

"Thank God for the token, one lip is still free, 
One spirit untrammcled, unbending one knee, 
Ivike the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm. 



— 619 — 

Krect, when multitudes bend to the storm; 
When traitors to freedom and honor and God 
Are bowed at an idol polluted with blood; 
When the recreant North has forg-otten her trust. 
And the lip of her honor lies low in the dust, 
Thank God, that one man from the shackles has broken, 
Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken! 
O'er thy crags, Alleg-heny, a blast has been blown, 
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, a murmur has g-one 
To the land of the South, of the charter and chain — 
Of liberty sweetened with slavery's pain; 
Where the cant of democracy dwells on the lips 
Of the forgers of fetters and wielders of whips! 
Where ' chivalric ' honor means really no more 
Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor! 
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high, 
And the words which he utters, are, 
' Worship, or die ! ' " 

[Applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, I do not class all men who are the owners 
of slaves, as "slave barons,"or pro-slavery conspirators, hos- 
tile to democratic government. Many men hold slaves who 
got them by inheritance, and circumstances beyond their con- 
trol compelled thena to remain slave owners. 

I personally know a number of slaveholders who are bet- 
ter men than you would suppose possible under the slave sys- 
tem which environs them. Their acts told me, more forcibly 
than their words, that their hearts were not in accord with 
the accursed system under which, by birth, education and 
surrounding conditions, they were compelled to live. Such 
men would always give their worthy and trusted slaves a half 
day to themselves on Saturday, and sometimes all of Satur- 
day, with the right to own and hold such personal property 
as they might earn during their holidays. Such men would 
permit their slaves to have their marriage solemnized by a 
regularly ordained clergyman of any church they might se- 
lect. Of course such men could not be induced to purchase 
newly imported African slaves from a slave dealer, nor pur- 
chase a person whom they had reason to suspect was a free 



— 620 — 

man, who had been kidnapped, either in a free or in a slave 
State, as has often been done by slave dealers. Such a slave 
master would no more be g"uilty of buying- and holding as a 
slave, a free white man, or Chinaman, or black man, than he 
would think of buying- and holding a stolen horse. So I say,that 
such slavemasters are better than the American slave system, 
under which thousands of men, white men, mulattoes, China- 
mei? and foreigners, as free born as you or I, are to-day held 
as chattel slaves, and there is, practically, no escape for them 
or their children but in the grave. [" Horrible! Infamous!"] 
But the men whom I have just described, are no more believ- 
ers in slavery than was Thomas Jefferson and thousands of 
Southern men, who were born to this dangerous and degrad- 
ing inheritance. [Applause.] Such slave masters frequently 
permitted their slaves to buy their freedom and that of their 
wives and children. I have known personally of a half dozen 
instances of that kind. 

Now let me give you a clear view of a fellow who is a 
*' slave baron " at heart, and I regret to be compelled to say 
that I have known of more than one such "slave baron." I 
have known an instance where slaves bargained for their 
freedom with masters who at heart were " slave barons," and 
after the price had been nearly all paid, the poor negro with- 
out notice was seized and sold South, from his family and all 
the home he had. 

Under the American slave system, the law declares, as I 
have read you, that a slave cannot own property, cannot make 
a contract, cannot even enter into a contract of marriage. 
He, therefore, can be seized and sold at any time, like a brute 
beast, and there is no escape in any slave State from this terri- 
ble condilioo. f " That's so."] 

When about eleven years of age, I was greatly shocked 
and my feelings outraged by this occurrence. Two slaves 
belonging to two different owners, each made a bargain with 
his master to purchase his freedom. One was to pay a thou- 
sand dollars, and be free as soon as he paid it, with no limit as 
to time. The other was to pay eight hundred dollars, if paid 
within five years. If the time went beyond five years, the 
price was to be eight hundred and filty doiiars. Many of the 
neighbors knew of these agreemcLts. Each ot these slaves 



— 621 — 

worked in season and out of season to earn the money for his 
ransom. As fast as each g-ot a few dollars ahead, they paid 
it over to their master, trusting- to him to keep the account 
honestly. In something- over three years' time, one had paid 
his master nearly nine hundred dollars, and the other over 
five hundred dollars, when, without notice, and without an 
attempt on the part of the masters to conceal the perfidy and 
the infamy of their acts, both slaves were sold, and uncere- 
moniously seized by the slave trader, manacled and chained 
in a coffle-g-ang- and driven off South and were never more 
seen or heard of by their families or friends, so far as I know. 
[Cries of "Shocking-! Shameful!"] Do you wonder that I 
was outrag-ed at this indescribable villainy? [Cries of "No, 
we do not."] And I am g-ladto be able to tell you that there 
were many honest, pure-minded men and women in that 
neig-hborhood, some of whom were slaveholders, who looked 
upon this dishonoring-, God-defying act, as simpl}" infamous. 
[Applause.] 

This horrid occurrence so worked upon me, that I have 
never forg-otten it, and my heart has never ceased to rebel 
ag-ainst a system which tolerates and makes possible such di- 
abolical crimes. [Applause.] 

Before I was twenty years of ag-e, I had drawn up a plan 
to aid slaves to purchase their freedom, and to provide by 
statute law ag-ainst a repetition of such villainy as I have de- 
scribed. [Applause.] 

There are a number in the audience who have heard me 
more than once explain the plan, and my boyish hopes in con- 
nection with it, and how those hopes were defeated and blast- 
ed. So I will not repeat it now. [Someone spoke up and 
said, "There are many here who never heard it, and who we 
know would like to hear ito"] 

"Well," said Mr. Ashley, "the afternoon is slipping 
away and I have not the time. It will give me pleasure to 
tell you about it, the next time I am witlti you for a speech. 
[Applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, in what I have said, I have sought to 
make my purpose so plain, that he who runs may read, lam 
determined that no honest man shall misunderstand my ao- 
peal. I therefore repeat, that 1 am unulierabiy opposed o 



— 622 — 

the ownership of labor by capital, either as chattel-slaves, or 
as apprentices for a term of years, as Chinamen are now be- 
ing- apprenticed in Cuba and in this country, ostensibly for 
seven years, but in reality for life. 

I do not ag-ree that capital shall own labor, North or 
South, nor in any country on God's green earth. [Applause.] 
I do not care whether that capital is in the hands of one man 
or in the hands of many men combined. Neither the state, 
nor a corporation (which is an artificial person, and often a 
soulless one at that, created by the authorit}' of the state), 
must be recognized as having" the rig-ht to deprive any per- 
son, however poor, whether white or black, of his life, or lib- 
erty, or propert}^ except in punishment for crime, of which 
he must be duly convicted in open court by a jury of his peers. 
[Applause.] This protection I demand for myself and mine, 
and that which I demand for myself, I demand for the hum- 
blest of God's poor, of whatever kindred, tong-ue or people. 
I demand for every human soul within our gates, whether 
black or white, or of mixed blood, the equal protection of the 
law, and that everywhere beneath or flag, on the land or on 
the sea, that they be protected in their right to life and lib- 
erty, and the secure possession of the fruits of their own 
labor. In short, I demand that all of God's children shall 
have an even chance in the race of life. [Applause.] You 
will, I know, agree with me, that it is the duty of a civilized 
state to protect the weak and defenseless against the aggres- 
sions of the selfish and the powerful, to protect them against 
the heartlessness of greed and the brutality born of the in- 
fernal spirit of caste. [Applause.] "Whatever the pretext or 
excuse, I am opposed to all forms of ownership of men, 
whether by the state, by corporations,or b}- individuals. The 
ownership of men, as chattels, b}^ the state, would be the 
most brutal and degrading form of slavery which the devilish 
ingenuity of man could invent. If I must be a slave, I would 
prefer to be the slave of one man, rather than a slave of a 
soulless corporation, or the slave of a state. But I protest in 
the name of that liberty which is the birthright of the human 
race,against the enslavement by individuals, by corporations, 
or by the state, of any of God's children, however poor or de- 
fenseless, whether white or black. [Applause.] 



— 623 — 

Fellow-citizens, you will readily understand, from what 
I have said, that I do not believe slavery can leg-ally exist in 
this country, a sing-le hour, under an honest interpretation of 
our national Constitution. 

I differ with my friends Garrison and Phillips, on this 
point, and do not admit that our national Constitution is a 
" covenant with hell and a leag-ue with death." [Applause.] 
On the contrary, I hold that if our national Constitution was 
properly interpreted, that a slave could not breathe any- 
where, on the land or on the sea, beneath our starry flag-. 
[Applause and "that's true."] 

I was asked to-day by a defender of slavery, whether if 
I were a judg-e, I would obey the command (as he expressed 
it) of the Constitution, and return a fug-itive slave, if one 
was broug-ht before me, by his owner or claimant. I intended 
in what I have already said to have answered this question, 
but I am ag-ain asked, by my friend on my rig-ht, to answer 
specifically, and I reply now, as I replied then, that I would 
not; that were I a judg-e, I should interpret th'^ Constitution 
for myself and not as others mig'ht interpret it for me. You 
know General Jackson said that he interpreted the Constitu- 
tion for himself, as his oath required he should do, and that 
he did not recog-nize the rig-ht of any man, or body of men, to 
interpret it for him. This oug-ht to be g-ood law for my 
questioner, v/ho is doubtless a professed disciple of "Old 
Hickory." [Applause.] In a case such as has been pre- 
sented, I should follow in the footsteps of General Jackson, 
and interpret the Constitution as I understand it. I shoui^d 

HOLD, THAT UNDER OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION, NEITHER 

THE Congress of the United States, nor the legislature 
OF ANY State, had the power to make a slave any more 
THAN TO MAKE A KING. [Applause.] If, therefore, any per- 
son should present himself before a court, in which I was 
acting- as judg-e, and claim a human being- as his property, I 
should require him (as a just and uprig-ht judge of Vermont 
is said to have done), as a condition to making- his claim 
good, that he produce a bill of sale from the Almighty, and 
if he could not do this, and produce a bill of sale with a 
genuine signature, I should cause him to be arrested as a 
kidnapper, and send him to the penitentiary for the full term 



— 624 — 

provided b}- law for kidnapping-. [Applause and laugfliter.] 
If I am clear about any clause in the Constitution, it is the 
clause which is always quoted to justify the fug^itive slave 
law. I den}' that the Constitution an3'where, either in letter 
or spirit, confers on Cong-ress the authority to pass a fug"itive 
slave law of any kind. On the contrary, I claim, that an in- 
tellig-ent, honest reading" of the Constitution, and the debates 
in the convention which framed it, will convince any fair- 
minded man, that Clause Three (3) of Article Four (4) of the 
Constitution, does not confer on Cong-ress the power to pass 
any law for the return of fug-itive slaves, and certainly no 
g-rant of power to Cong-ress can be found in that instrument 
for the passag-e of such an act, as the infamous fug-itive- 
slave law of 1850. [Applause,] 

Let me read the clause relied upon by the slave barons 
and their Northern lacke3'-s, for a justification of the present 
fug-itive-slave law. Clause Three (3) of Article Four (4), 
Section Two, reads as follows: 

Clause III. "No person, held to service or labor in one 
State, under the laws thereof, escaping- into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law or reg-ulation therein, be discharg-- 
ed from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." 
This clause and each clause in Article Four (4), Sections 
One and Two, are simply a compact stipulation and manda- 
tory on the States, and confers no authority whatever, direct 
or indirect, on Cong-ress. [Applause.] When you g-o home 
read the Constitution and see if I am not rig-ht. Wherever 
power so important as this, is conferred b}- the Constitution 
on Cong-ress, it is conferred, and intended to be conferred, by 
express grant, and in clear and unambiguous lang-uag-e, and 
not by implication. Turn to Section Eig-ht (S) and read from 
Clause One (1) to Clause Eig-htccn (18), and you will find 
that all the g-rants of power to Cong-ress are g-iven in direct and 
unmistakable language. It reads, " The Congress shall have 
power, etc., "and Article Ten (10) of the Amendments distinct- 
ly provides that " The powers not delegated to the Congress of 
the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to 
the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the peo- 
ple." [Applause.] In no section of the Constitution is there a 



— 625 — 

grant of power to Congress to enact laws for capturing- and 
returning persons held by the laws of any State to service or 
labor, either for a term of years or for life — nor is there any 
authority given for the capture and return of criminals es- 
caping from one State into another. 

The slave code of every slave State, denies that slaves 
are " persons," and describes them as chattels personal, or 
as property. The words used in Clause Three (3) of Section 
Four (4) of the Constitution describes "persons held to service 
or labor," and in Clause Three (3) of Article One (1), Sec- 
tion Two (2), as "bound to service for a term of years," but 
nowhere describes them as slaves. The phrase, " held to ser- 
vice or labor," and "bound to service for a term of years," 
are legal technical phrases, and can only be applied to per- 
sons who are bound or held by a contract, which they them- 
selves, or their lawful guardians, may have legally executed 
"for a term of years," and cannot possibly mean slaves, 
because no person, black or white, or of mixed blood, 
can legal-ly sell himself into slavery or make a contract, bind- 
ing on himself for life, with a provision that his posterity 
shall be slaves and chattels forever. [Applause.] Nor can 
a guardian lawfully sell a minor into slavery. 

The interpretation put upon this clause of the Constitu- 
tion by the slave barons, is a forced interpretation, and an 
outrage on the meaning of language, and on all known rules 
of law. When this clause was under consideration in the 
convention, a proposition was made to insert a distinct pro- 
vision for reclaiming fugitive slaves. It was promptly op- 
posed by the ablest men in the convention, and abandoned 
without a vote, and the clause concerning " persons," from 
whom service or labor may be due, was adopted unanimously 
and without debate. So you see, that the refusal of the con- 
vention to provide for the rendition of fugitive slaves, by na- 
tional authority, is a historical fact. [Applause.] As the 
text of the Constitution which I have quoted, and the debates 
in the convention clearly indicate, the power to pass a fugi- 
tive-slave law was not conferred on Congress, and I am con- 
fident that no such power was intended to be conferred. All 
that can be fairly claimed for that clause, is that it is a com- 
40 



— 626 — 

pact stipulation and simply mandatory, on the States. [Ap- 
plause.] With the same parit}" of reasoning-, it might be 
claimed, on the authority of Clause Two (2) of Section Two 
(2), Article Four (4), that Congress had the power to pass a 
law for the capture and return of criminals escaping- from one 
State into another. If this claim were made, and Cong-ress 
should pass such an act as the fug-itive-slave law, including" 
the denial of trial by jury, and the suspension of the writ of 
habeas corpus, what a howl we should hear from the apostles 
of States' rights, and strict construction of the Constitution. 
[Applause.] And 3-et, Congress has precisely the same au- 
thority, under the grants of power in the Constitution, over 
escaping criminals, that it has over persons escaping from 
service or labor due under the laws of an}- State. [Applause.] 
Mr. Madison, who by common consent, hasbj' all parties 
been called the " father of the Constitution," repeatedly de- 
clared during the sitting of the convention, " that it would be 
wrong to recognize in the Constitution, the idea that there could 
be property in man." In view of this well-known fact, is it 
to be supposed that the intellectual g"iantsin that convention, 
those men of brain and high patriotic purposes, intended to 
give, or thought they were surreptitiously giving, to the new 
government which they were creating, the power to keep up 
a perpetual slave hunt throughout the republic, for fugitives 
guilty of no crime but that of escaping from the most infer- 
nal despotism on earth? [Applause.] Is it conceivable that 
they intended to make all citizens of the republic slave 
hounds, and that the first and most important function of the 
free government, which they were establishing, was to be 
the catching and returning of fugitive slaves? [Applause.] 
Did they intend that this free government which they were 
organizing, should be dismembered and destroyed, as the 
slave barons and their northern allies now threaten to do, the 
moment the National Government failed to obey the insolent 
and infamous demands which thc}^ are to-day making upon 
us, that we capture and return to them, at public expense, 
all their escaping human chattels? [Applause.] Are we to 
believe, that a majority of the members of that memorable 
convention, who had just passed through the fire and blood 
of the Revolution — a revolution conceived and achieved to 



— 627 — 

establish the God-g-Iven rights of personal liberty — would 
have been so false to their principles and professions, as to 
induce them to voluntarily g"rant to Cong-ress the power to 
force them and their posterity forever, to eng-ag-e in an ever- 
lasting" slave hunt, for the benefit of a few slave barons? 
[Applause.] Thank God, that not one jot or tittle of evi- 
dence can be found to sustain a chang-e so monstrous and so 
infamous. [Applause.] But I am told by men who claim 
to be constitutional lawyers, and by cross-roads statesmen, 
who accept the acts of Cong^ress and the adjudication of 
courts as "finalities," that Cong-ress has passed fugitive- 
slave laws, and that the highest court in the nation has 
afl&rmed their constitutionalit3\ With shame and humilia- 
tion, I admit that Congress has passed such laws — laws 
which the prince of darkness could not make blacker — and I 
admit that the Supreme Court has affirmed their constitu- 
tionality. From this gross interpretation of the Constitu- 
tion, I appeal to the hearts and conscience of the people, 
who can make and unmake courts and relegate to private life 
all so called law-givers who deceive and betray. [Applause.] 
An enlightened and patriotic people are certain at no distant 
day to abolish the infamy of slavery and consign its cham- 
pions and apologists to the loathing and contempt which 
awaits them in history. [Applause.] 

If the overthrow of slavery and of the slave barons can 
be accomplished in no other way, it must be done by an 
amendment to our national and all our State constitutions, 
and eventually, as I have heretofore said, we must go further 
than this, and amend our national Constitution, so as to pro- 
vide for the election of the President and United States 
Senators by a direct vote of the people, and the election of 
Representatives to Congress, in such manner as to secure to 
the minority of the voters, in each State, their proportion of 
members in Congress, from every State entitled under any 
apportionment to three or more Representatives. [Ap- 
plause.] And I hope to live long enough to see this demo- 
cratic proposition become a national issue, and I am sure you 
will agree with me, that it is now a national duty to inaugu- 
rate such a movement. [Applause.] 

Horace Mann once said to me, that he despaired of the 



— 628 — 

republic, when the so-called compromise measures of 1850 
were passed by Cong-ress. I answered him, that I did not de- 
spair, nor did I propose to surrender, and I tell 3'ou as I told 
him, that thoug^h our political sky is storm}' and dark, I have 
an abiding- faith, strong and clear, and I believe that I shall 
live to see the day when libert}- and justice shall everywhere 
triumph in this fair land of ours. It cannot be that this 
long, dark night of shame and crime will endure forever. 
[Applause.] At an}- rate, I intend, by God's blessing, to 
keep this faith or none. [Applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, as the great Roman Senator invari- 
ably closed every speech he made, either in the Senate 
or to his army, whether on questions of administration of 
finance or of war, with the declaration, "But Carthage must 
be destroyed," so I, for the hundredth time or more, close my 
speech to-day with the declaration, that come what may 
"American slavery must be destroyed." [Applause and 
cries of "Go on."] 

But, fellow-citizens, I find that I have spoken over two 
hours and detained you much longer than I intended. ["Go 
on, go on," came in chorus from man}^ voices.] I would be 
glad to do so, if I were not posted to speak to-night in West 
Unity. Of course I must not disappoint our friends over 
there, and you see, if I go there to-night I shall be compelled 
to stop now. I thank 3'ou for the compliment implied in your 
request to "go on," no less than for the approving and gen- 
erous applause j'ou have given me during my speech. 

In closing, let me ask that ever}* earnest man and woman 
before me, shall each for themselves put on the simple but 
invincible armor of Truth, and with the sword of the Lord 
of Gideon, that 3-ou go forth conquering and to conquer. 
Kot with the sword of Moloch, and the banner of sedition 
and blood, but under the spotless banner of the Prince of 
Peace. In the inspirational language of our beloved Quaker 
Poet, 



" Not mine sedition's trumpet-blast 
And threatening word; 
I read the lessons of the past, 



— 629 — 

That firm endurance wins at last, 
More than the sword. 

"0, clear-eyed Faith, and Patience, thou 
So calm and strong! 
Lend strength to weakness; teach us how 
The sleepless eyes of God look through 
This night of wrong." 

["Amen! Amen I" and applause.] 

Letter from Bishop B. W. Araett, Chairmaa of Committee, 
When we began the task assigned us, w-e decided to begin with the speeches and 
addresses delivered by Mr. Ashley after his first election to Congress, in 1858. But in 
reading a number of his campaign speeches made in 1853-54 (before the Republican 
party was organized), and in 1855-57, v.-hen Salmon P. Chase was elected governor of 
Ohio, we determined to add to the matter already stereotyped, at least one of his old- 
time abolition stump speeches, and selected the one made at Montpelier, Ohio, in 1856, 
because we happen to be personally cognizant of the historical facts stated, about the 
election of Mr. Chase to the United States Senate, and the repeal of the black laws of 
Ohio. We are confident that the reader will thank us for including with this collec- 
tion this masterly old-fashioned stump speech and the extracts from the Bowling 
Green and Mt. Gilead sueeches following. 

B. W. Aknett. 



EXTRACTS 



From Speech made by Hon. J. M. Ashley at Bowling 

Green, Wood County, Ohio, during the 

Congressional Campaign of i862. 



Mr. Chairman: I have been asked to-day, as I have been 
asked before, why I did not reply to the deluge of slanders 
with which my personal and political opponents assail me in 
this canvass. I answer you frankly, that I do not, because I 
know by observation and reading that against the politically 
vicious and brutal, neither character nor integrity nor ab.ility 
can successfully cope in any political campaign. As a rule 
the unscrupulous political maligner has the first and the last 
word, and men of self-respect cannot descend to a personal 
discussion with them. [Applause.] In my political cam- 
paigns I have attempted to follow the simple and practical 
maxim laid down by Washington, who, when questioned by 
his friends (as I have been questioned here to-da}-) as to why 
he did not answer his slanderers, said, "that to persevere 
in one's duty and be silent, is the best answer to calum- 
ny." And a higher authority has commanded those "who 
are reviled, to revile not again." [Applause.] 

By my public and private acts, whether official or unof- 
ficial, I demand to be judged. My official acts and public ut- 
terances are matters of record, and cannot be altered or fal- 
sified except by fraud and forger}^, and fraud and forgery can- 
not long be successful. 

As the most reckless of my maligners have not, thus far, 

(630) 



— 631 — 

assailed the integrity of my private life, I can afford to say 
to each and all of them as "Uncle Toby" said to the fly, 
which had for a long- time exasperated and annoyed him. 
When he caught it, he walked deliberately to the open window 
and permitted it to escape, with the benevolent and philo- 
sophical remark, "Go, poor thing-. There is room enough in 
the world for both thee and me." [Laughter and applause.] 
■ Instead of entering into a controversy with the political 
plotters and conspirators who are assailing me, and have de- 
liberately misrepresented end misinterpreted my official acts 
and public utterances, I have on more occasions than one 
said as I now say, that I prefer to treat all such reckless ma- 
ligners with silent contempt and to walk backward, as I now 
do, with averted gaze [walks backward, with head turned] , 
and with the broad mantle of charity cover their moral and 
political nakedness. [Applause.] I have lived long enough 
to learn that those who walk in the sunshine of fame must 
ever and always be followed by the shadow of envy. But life 
is all too short, and its mission too g-rand, for me to waste my 
time and strength in answering the slanders of the campaign 
maligner. I have therefore determined to so live, as to write 
my friendships on the granite, and my enmities in the sand. 
[Applause.] 



Mr. Chairman, again I affirm, as I have often affirmed 
when addressing the Republicans of this District, that sla- 
very is not only the foe of the human race, but that it is 
especially the foe of every working-man in all civilized lands; 
and I appeal to the working-men of America, to strike hands 
and aid us in crushing this slave barons' rebellion, and thus aid 
in preserving our national unity and in securing national free- 
dom. Strike hands against disunion and for a war which, 
when successful, will bring unity and peace, a union which 
shall be free in fact as well as in name. Strike for the right 
of every man, whether white or black, to own himself and 
the fruits of his own labor, so that in all our broad domain, 
there shall not be a single slave. Strike for co-operation 
and against monopolies; for a free ballot for -all, black as well 
as white, and equitable representation in Congress and in all 



-632 — 

leg"islative assemblies, State or municipal; strike also against 
the one-man power in our Government. 

Have faith in the future and in each other. Be assured 
that behind this slave barons' conspiracy, if successful, there 
is being- prepared fetters for all working--men, and monster 
monopolies will then be organized which will reduce all 
laboring-men, practically, to the condition of chattel slaves. 
Be not deceived; slave labor degrades and cheapens the labor 
of every free man, and I do not hesitate to declare that from 
this hour, henceforth and forever, there can be no enduring 
peace so lor.' ■ as slavcrj^ dominates in the national or in any 
of our State governments. 

The power in our hands for its destruction will be invin- 
cible, whenever as a unit, the working-men of America de- 
cree that it shall die. The gilded curtain which has so long 
dazzled but to conceal the great crime of the slave barons' 
rebellion, will be rent in" twain by the breath of the enfran- 
chised working-men of America, whenever they will it. If 
you but listen with me, you will hear, as I now hear, the 
measured and triumphant tread of an organized army of 
independent working-men, who with a freeman's ballot in 
their hands are marching with music and banners to battle 
and to victory. [Applause.] 

And when that hour of victory for true democratic gov- 
ernment shall come, as it is certain to come, what a change 
there will be in our national life, when contrasted with the 
dark conditions which overshadowed the republic when, as a 
boy, I first visited the national capital. Then, on all sides, 
the clanking fetters of the slave greeted one's ears. Now, 
the songs of liberty and hope everywhere cheer you with 
their welcome. 



"When first I saw her banner wave 
Above the nation's council-hall, 
I heard beneath its marble wall 
The clanking fetters of the slave. 

" In the foul market-place I stood, 
And saw the Christian mother sold. 



/■ ^ ^ 

— b^^ — 

And childhood with its locks of g"old, 
Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood. 

"The flag" that floated from the dome 
Flapped menace in the morning- air; 
I stood a periled stranger, where 
The human broker made his home. 

"For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword, 
And Law their three-fold sanction gave, 
And to the quarry of the slave 
Went hawking with our symbol bird. 

"On the oppressor's side was power; 
And yet I knew that every wrong, 
However old, however strong. 
But waited God's avenging hour: 

" I knew that truth would crush the lie — 
Somehow, sometime, the end would be; 
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see 
The triumph with my mortal eye. 

" But now I see it! In the sun 

A free flag floats from yonder dome, 
And af the nation's hearth and home 
The justice long delayed is done. 

" Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, 
The message of deliverance comes; 
But heralded by roll of drums 
On waves of battle-troubled air! 

" Not as we hoped; but what are we? 
Above our broken dreams and plans 
God lays, with wiser hands than man*s 
The corner-stones of liberty." • 

[" Amen " and " Amen " and applause.] 



EXTRACT FROM SPEECH 



Made in 1865 by Hon. J. M. Ashley, at Gilead, Wood 

County, Ohio. 



Mr. Chairman: It is claimed b}- the unconditional Union 
men of the nation, and conceded by all thoug"htful citizens, 
that the constitutional power of the National Government is 
ample for its protection and defense. But I g"o a step further 
and claim that under the Constitution, Congress alone has 
the power to determine what shall be the future relations of 
all who have been in rebellion against the Government, and 
also what shall be the future relations of the slaves whom it 
made free when Abraham Lincoln, by his Emancipation 
Proclamation, invited them to enlist in its armies and aid in 
putting down the slave barons' rebellion. 

If this proposition be not true, then, indeed, as a nation 
are we powerless and defenseless in the future against organ- 
ized conspiracy and internal public enemies. True, we have 
crushed the rebellion, and the clash of arms no longer resounds 
within hearing of the national capital, but our hour of vic- 
tory is also our hour of humiliation and defeat, if the 
moment a truce is proclaimed by the generals in command of 
the contending armies, the vanquished may assume in 
defiance of the Congress of the United States all the political 
power and authorit}- which they had in each of the rebel 
States, and in the legislative halls of Congress, prior to the 
rebellion. If this amazing claim should be conceded by us, 
then, indeed, will the joy of the loyal white and black men of 
the South be tiirned to sorrow and mourning! If we are 

(r>34) 



— 635 — 

guilty of the folly and criminality of surrendering- them to 
the tender mercy of their enemies and ours, we will be of all 
men most g-uilty. [Applause.] Can it be that after having- 
emancipated four millions of human being-s so that no person 
can hereafter hold and treat any man as a chattel slave, we 
are powerless to prevent his late master from making- him 
the slave of the State? Heaven forbid. [Applause.] 



Mr. Chairman, there comes a period in the lifetime of 
every man of individuality and strong- convictions, when ideas 
take complete possession of his heart and brain, which, if 
conscientiously followed, will carry him far beyond the con- 
servative line of prudence, and enable him, despite prejudice 
and hate, the selfish interests of men, and the formidable 
barriers of human law, to contribute something- to the in- 
auguration of needed reforms, and changes in society and 
governments. Such men are ever present in all nations, with 
the "higher law" written in their hearts. They come to us 
with an inspiration which causes them to live simple and pure 
lives, and to labor for others w^ith an unselfish devotion which 
the world does not understand, and which none can appreci- 
ate who do not know something of the inner life of the lead- 
ers of men, who follow their own thoughts, with the sublime 
faith of a child. These are the men who intuitively know 
what is really right and best for the human race; men whose 
great thoughts and inspirations cannot be suppressed by the 
social or political regulations o*f society and governments, nor 
by unjust provisions of constitutions or the penal enactments 
of statute-books. That which they believe to be true they are 
ever ready to maintain, though they suffered the penalty of 
the law which killeth. [Applause.] 

The musty precedents of governments, the regulations of 
society, the penal demands of law, may punish by fines and im- 
prisonment or social ostracism, but the law of the Great Su- 
preme breathes into the soul of such a man, a power which 
makes his thoughts outlive them all, and causes the develop- 
ment of a more perfect and better state of society and govern- 
ment. [Applause.] 

Such were the anti-slavery men and women of America, 



— 636 — 

the latchet of whose shoes the mass of men ol their day were 
not worthy to unloose. They came to us with the g-ospel of 
liberty in their hearts,and oppression fled before them. Like 
heroes divinely commissioned, when any one of them "blew 
a blast upon his bug-le-horn 'twas worth a thousand men!" 
You can now all look back and know that each blew a blast 
which aided in destroying- the oppressor and liberating* the 
oppressed, so that to-day, within all our borders, the sun does 
not rise nor set upon a single slave. [Applause.] 

All this has come to us because a chosen few dared to 
put God's law above all human law, and to give the best 
thought of their lives to the accomplishment of a great and 
holy purpose. You all know that I have been a humble and 
devoted follower and active co-worker with these grand men 
and women, whom we all affectionately call the "old guard." 

During our great anti-slavery battle I have not been a 
"camp-follower," as many of you can testify. [Applause.] 
In the coming battle for the enfranchisement of the black 
man, I need not tell you that I shall not rest until he is 
clothed by constitutional provision, with an American citi- 
zen's cleanest and purest weapon — the ballot. [Applause.] 
As the ballot is the most formidable weapon of protection 
and defense for 3-ou and for me, I demand that the same 
weapon shall be secured to every black man, and that he be 
protected in his right to use it as freely and peaceably as we 
use it here in Ohio. [Applause.] 

In doing this, we shall quit ourselves like men, and the 
g-ates of fortune shall open wide for us, as a nation. In 
doing right for the helpless, we shall gain strength ourselves. 
Self-exertion evermore gives fresh hope and a faith that en- 
dures and with patience waits. Then let us 



"Seek for strength in self-exertion; 
Work, and still have faith to wait; 
Close the crooked gates to fortune; 
Make the road to honor straight. 



Follow out true cultivation; 
Widen education's plan, 



— 637 — 

From the Majesty of Nature, 
Teach the Majesty of Man. 



*' Feed the plant, whose fruit is wisdom; 
Cleanse from crime, the common sod; 
So that from the throne of heaven 
It may bear the g-lance of God." 

[Applause.] 

Letter from Rev, S. T.Mitchell, President of Wilberforce University. 
The foreg-oing- speech, made at Montpelier in 1856, and the ex- 
tracts following from speeches made in Wood County in 1862 and '65, 
reflect with clearness and power the advanced anti-slavery opinions 
held by Mr. Ashley at the date of their .delivery, and make his anti- 
slavery record so complete that we have found "no word or thought 
which we could wish to change or blot." Observation teaches us 
that there are but few young men with character and ability strong 
enough to answer calumny by silence, and be able to live on a plane so high as to re- 
buke and answer, by acts, not words, all political falsehoods; and still fewer men, 
young or old, who in the midst of detraction, can declare as he did in the foregoing' 
extract made from his speech at Bowling Green in 1862, that he had determined to so 
live as to silence the maligner and to quote his own language, " to write my friend- 
ships on the granite, and my enmities in the sand." We have never read anything 
grander in any speech. S. T. Mitchell. 




MITCHELL. 



ADDRKSS 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO. 



Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives 
March 31, 1864. 



ON THE DEATH OP HON. OWEN LOVEJOY, OF ILLINOIS. 



Mr. Ashley. Mr. Speaker, on Friday nig-ht last the 
immortal spirit of Owen Lovejoy passed from earth. This 
sad message, borne on the lightning-'s wing, carried sorrow 
to the hearts of millions. In his death the nation has lost 
one of its ablest, most accomplished and eloquent sons, the 
slave a faithful friend, and true democracy a cherished de- 
fender. 

I was not at his bedside and cannot tell you how he died. 
The world knows how he lived; and such a life I am sure 
could only have a fitting close in a Christian death. Let us 
learn by his heroic example that 

**We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 

Mr. Speaker, the death of our friend was not wholl}^ un- 
expected by me. For more than two years, at our committee 
meetings, I have witnessed with anxiet}^ month by month 
and week by week, the fire of his eye grow dim and the vital- 
ity of his organization gradually )'ield to the approaching 
destroyer. Though not full of years, he was crowned with 

(638) 



— 639 — 

honors, and descended to the tomb with the benediction of a na- 
tion upon his head. He lived to see the seed he had sown ripen 
into g"rain, ready for the harvest. He saw the dawning- of the 
morn so long- and so anxiously.looked for by the friends of free- 
dom in the United States; but he was not permitted to remain 
with us to join in the g-eneral song- of joy which awaits the tri- 
/imph that ere long- shall reg-enerate the nation. That Provi- 
dence which cannot err, has, for wise purposes, called our friend 
and brother to his reward. 

While we sorrow for our loss and sympathize with his 
bereaved family in their deep affliction, we can truthfully 
and with exultation say: 

" The g-reat work laid upon Ids manly years 
Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears, 
Who loved him as few men were ever loved, 
We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan 
With him whose life stands rounded and approved 
In the full g-rowth and stature of a man." 



ADDRESS 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO. 



Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives, 
December 17, 1868. 



ON THE DEATH OF HON. THADDEUS STEVENS OF PENNSYL- 
VANIA. 



Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in the death of 
Thaddcus Stevens this House has lost one of its recog"nized 
loaders, and the nation one of her most distinguished sons. 
In his departure we shall miss another of the uncompromis- 
ing" heroes of our anti-slavery revolution. 

Elijah and Owen Lovejoy arre entombed, the one at Alton 
and the other at Princeton, Illinois. Adams and Pierpont sleep 
beneath the soil of their native Massachusetts; Theodore 
Parker at Florence, in Italy; William Leg-gett at New Rochelle, 
New York; Nathaniel Po Rog-ers by his native Merrimac; 
Gamaliel Bailey within the shadow of the national Capitol; 
Giddings and Morris and Lewis in Ohio; James G. Birney in 
New Jersey; David YVilmot and James Mott in Pennsylvania; 
John Brown at North Elba, New York; and there are others 
whose lives were as heroic and beautiful and unselfish, whose 
names I need not recall. To these must be added more than 
three hundred thousand, the fallen heroes and martyrs of our 
liberating army, who sleep on every national battle-field, 
from the heights of Gettj-sburg to the banks of the Rio 

(b40) 



— 641 — 

Grande. Pre-eminent among- all this invincible army of 
heroes, prophets, and martyrs, is Abraham Lincoln, 

"The g-enerous, merciful, and just." 

With this grand army of unselfish patriots, his contem- 
poraries and co-laborers, we have laid down to rest all that is 
mortal of our friend in the bosom of his beloved Pennsyl- 
vania. 

The benediction of millions followed him to his tomb, 
and to-day in the free home of every black man, and of all 
men who love liberty, there is sincere sorrow and mourning-. 

Never ag-ain in these council halls will he deliberate with 
the people's representatives, nor awaken the nation from its 
letharg-y by his g-enius and wonderful power. 

The honorable g-entleman whom his constituents have 
elected to succeed him on this floor, and those who have pre- 
ceded me, have spoken so fully of his early life, his heroic 
strug-g-les, and his personal history, that I need not add a 
sing-le word. 

Through some of the most eventful years in our history 
I have been intimately associated with him on this floor. 
During- all that time, which included the darkest hours in the 
nation's life — hours which tested the constancy and courage 
of men — he bore himself with such unquestioned fidelity to 
the cause of human freedom, as to command even the respect 
of political opponents and the cordial indorsement of all liber- 
ty-loving- men. 

As we engage in the memorial services of this hour, and 
bear him again in our hearts from this Capitol and the scenes 
of his struggles and wonderful triumphs, let the nation stand 
with uncovered head and its bells peal forth the solemn sound 
of an anthem more appropriate than any words of mine: 

"Toll, toll, toll. 

All mortal life must end. 
Toll, toll, toll, 

Weep for the nation's friend. 
Oh, the land he loved will miss him, 
41 



— 642 — 

♦ 

Miss him in its hour of need, 
Mourns the nation for the nation, 

Till its tear-drops inward bleed. 
Let bands of mourning- drape the homestead, 

And the sacred house of prayer; 
Let the mourning* folds lay black and heavy 

On true bosoms everywhere. 

"Toll, toll, toll, 

Never again — no more — 
Comes back to earth the life that goes 

Hence to the Eden shore. 
Let him rest, — it is not often 

That his soul hath known repose. 
Let him rest, — they rest but seldom 

Whose successes challenge foes. 
He was weary, worn with watching, 

His life crown of power hath pressed 
Oft on temples sadly aching — 

He was weary; let him rest. 
Toll, bells at the Capitol, 

Bells of the land, toll. 
Sob out your grief with brazen lungs, 

Toll, toll, toll. 

Mr. Speaker, though death come never so often, he casts 
at the portals of the tomb shadows ever new and mysterious, 
and ever and always hath for the living his admonitions and 
his lessons. 

By the side of the grave we all realize that there are 
voices whispering to us out of the shadowy silence beyond the 
river. 

In such an hour we see with the natural eye " as through 
a glass darkly," but we have the promise that if faithful we 
shall see *' face to face." As there is no race of men without 
the idea of a God and a future life, so in the presence of death 
it is natural for all to pause and think of the life beyond. 

What is to be the destin3' of our friend in "that undis- 
covered country from whose bourn no traveler returns," it is 



— 643 — 

wisely not g-iven us to know. Let us hope that he has g-one 
up into the presence of the God of nations and of men, bear- 
ing- in his hands some of the broken fetters which have 
fallen from the limbs of our four million emancipated bonds- 
men. These shall testify of his fidelity to justice and to his 
love of the human race. 

In that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall 
be revealed, I trust it may be said to him by the Father of 
all, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And that this 
will be said, I may without presumption hope, for whatever 
may be the theories of men, whatever our hope for ourselves 
or for others in the life which never dies, let us trust that 
better than all our faiths, and more comprehensive than 
our grandest conceptions, an all-wise Creator has ordained a 
plan as broad as the universe, and as just as it is infinite, 
which will compensate in the future life every soul which 
has struggled and suffered for mankind in this. 

Mr. Speaker, there are moments in the experiences of all 
when we cannot convey to other hearts the emotions of our 
own. To me such a moment is the present. So many 
reminiscences are crowding upon me, and so many wonderful 
scenes in which our departed friend was an actor are passing- 
as a panorama before me, that I feel how short I should come 
of doing them or him justice were I to dwell upon them. No 
man who loves his country and has passed through those 
scenes in these halls can ever forget them. When I first 
entered this House, ten years ago, Mr. Stevens was one of 
the first to take me by the hand and welcome me. From that 
day until the day of his death he was my friend, and often 
my adviser and counselor. However often I may have dif- 
fered with him, as I often did, there was one question about 
which we never differed: the question of the necessity of the 
immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery. Of the 
practicability and justice of destroying- slavery he never 
doubted. I am thankful that he was spared to witness the 
end of that indescribable villainy. I rejoice to know that as 
the gates of the eternal world opened up before him he was 
permitted to look back upon the land he loved and nowhere 
behold the footprints of a single slave. Because of his 



— 644 — 

unwavering- fidelity to the poor bondsmen, who, in the pres- 
ence of a nation of oppressors, were manacled and powerless 
and dumb, I came to venerate him; and because I venerated 
him while living-, I come to-daj to cast a garland upon his 
tomb. In this selfish world there is nothing which so strongly 
enlists m}^ sympathies and so much commands my admiration 
as a heroic and unselfish life spent in the interests of man- 
kind. To me it is the most touching and beautiful of all 
human struggles. 

In espousing the cause of the slave more than forty 
years ago, Mr. Stevens voluntarily accepted social and polit- 
ical ostracism, and patiently endured the persecutions of ig- 
norant and maddened men, for whose highest interest he was 
laboring. He did this without fee or hope of political re- 
ward, simph' because he believed it to be right; and because 
he was right we shall some day see the children of the men 
who stoned him, gladly join hands with the liberated slave, 
in bearing back the stones, in the shape of blocks of whitest 
marble, with which to build his monument. 

I do not assume to write his epitaph. In a speech deliv- 
ered in this House January 13th, 1865, he said — I read from 
volume fifty-four of the Globe, page 266: 

" I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus: 
' Here lies one who never rose to an}- eminence, and who 
only courted the low ambition to have it said, that he had 
striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, 
the downtrodden of every race and language and color.' " 

The grand blows which he struck in his great battle for 
liberty and justice will long survive him and leave their im- 
press upon all lands, strengthening the purpose of the toiling 
and struggling millions of earth. His successful life-battle 
should teach us the value and self-sustaining power of a life 
consecrated to the best interests of his country and his fel- 
low-men. 

In this impressive hour, while reviewing his heroic and 
unselfish acts, let us renew our vows of fidelity to the great 
principles which he so long, so abh' and so faithfully main- 
tained. Let us, here and now, pledge our lives anew to the 
cause of human liberty and human progress, resolving that 
no obstacle nor selfish interest shall cause us to falter, so 



— 645 — 

that when we descend to the tomb, the benedictions of man- 
kind shall bless us, as they now bless him for whom we 
mourn, and it shall be said of us as it is now said of him: 

"He hath not lived in vain." 

After a long" and stormy battle, with a record which the 
friends of freedom will ever cherish, full of years and crowned 
with honors, he — 

"Has g-one from this strang-e world of ours, 
No more to g-ather its thorns with its flowers; 
No more to ling-er where sunbeams must fade; 
Where, on all beauty. Death's fingers are laid. 
Weary with ming-ling- life's bitter and sweet; 
Weary with parting- and never to meet; 
Weary with sowing" and never to reap; 
Weary with labor and welcoming- sleep. 
In Christ may he rest, from sorrow and sin 
Happy, where earth's conflicts enter not in." 



HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY'S ORATION 
On the death of D. R. Locke. 



A FITTING AND TOUCHING TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY. 



FROM THE TOLEDO BLADE. 



There was deep silence when the speaker, in tones rev- 
erent and low, commenced his oration at the bier of the man 
who. had for many years been his personal and political 
friend. 

He said: My friends, we have come together to-day to 
testify our respect for the living-, and discharg-e our last ten- 
der duty to the dead. 

When the shadow of a g-reat sorrow falls upon us, we 
naturally turn from the darkness which surrounds us, to catch 
a glimpse of the coming of the first ra3's of morning light. 
So b}^ the side of every new-made grave, our hearts gladly 
welcome the thought of another and better life be3'ond. 

Without assuming to have a knowledge of the hereafter, 
v/e come reverently to lay our friend down to rest, and we do 
not question that, " after life's fitful fever he sleeps well." 

The last time I looked upon the face of our friend, I was 
impressed with the belief that his life's work was finished; 
that his last battle had been fought, and, I doubt not, that as 
soon as he became conscious of this fact, he desired to depart 
and be at rest. 

It is as natural to die as to live, and because this is true, 
I do not look upon death as the arch enem}^ of man, but rather 
as his friend. 

When, therefore, a friend pa^-s the last debt of nature, I 

(646) 



— 647 — 

would not clothe myself in sackcloth and rebel agfainst the 
divine law which has set a limit to human habitation, and 
said to each and all: " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thcu 
return." 

No thoughtful man of mature years desires to live in this 
world of strugg"les and disappointments, forever. Certainly 
I should regard it as a mercy, if the fing-er of death could be 
laid upon each one of us the very day our life's work was done, 
or whenever we became helpless and hopeless, or our suffer- 
ings and sorrows outweighed the pleasures and joys of life. 

If Mr. Locke could never again have entered upon the 
active duties of life, it was a blessing that the merciful finger 
of death was laid upon him, and he called to that "bourn 
from which no traveler returns," where we all hope sorrow, 
disease and death can never come. 

I have no wish to magnify the virtues of my friend, nor 
at the expense of truth to excuse his errors. The living 
ought to be able to learn by the faults, not less than by the 
virtues of public men, and when I add that he was human 
and like all men "prone to err as the sparks are to fly up- 
ward," I have said all that truth and duty bid me say. 

Those who did not know Mr. Locke could not understand 
him. This is the fate of every man of genius, and because 
he was not thoroughly understood, his words and acts were 
often sharply criticised and sometimes unsparingly con- 
demned. That he was a man of great ability and force of 
character, all concede; and his intimates know that he was 
always true to his convictions and faithful to his friends. It 
is true that he did not believe in, and could not subscribe to, 
any of the formulated religious dogmas of our popular 
churches. 

He often said to me: " I cannot believe in such creeds, 
and shall therefore neither accept nor affirm any." And then 
he would quote from the "Sermon on the Mount:" " If j^e 
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more shall your Father which is in 
Heaven give good things to them that ask him." With this 
faith, or no faith; this religion or no religion, "he wrapped 
the drapery of his couch about him and lay down to pleasant 
dreams," sincerely believing that the Power which created 



-648— 

him was both able and willing" to take care of him. " And 
that God's greatness flows round our incompleteness, around 
our restlessness, His rest." 

Mr. Locke was a tireless worker. He could not be a 
drone, nor eat the bread of idleness. "Industry," with him» 
was one of the cardinal virtues. 

I need not add a single word to what has been so well 
and appropriately said touching- Mr. Locke's literary and 
journalistic career. 

\Vhen, in after years, the history of Ohio and Toledo 
shall be written, Mr. Locke's ability and claims to remem- 
brance and distinction will have the fullest and amplest 
recognition. 

His g-reatest work was in behalf of the nation's unity and 
integrity during- the war of the rebellion. Throug-h the 
"Nasby" letters he spoke every week to millions of men. 
These letters strengthened the arms of soldier and statesman 
alike, and everywhere inspired with hope, zeal and courag-e 
the nation's defenders. The humor and satire of these letters 
were never equaled. Their satire was as keen as a Damascus 
blade, and their humor as broad as the continent. They 
shamed the " doughfaced " statesman and "doughfaced" 
churchman into a recognition of the humanity of the negro, 
and did more than to-day can be estimated, to break down the 
unreasoning prejudice ag-ainst the black man, and consolidate 
the sentiment and judgment of the nation in favor of the 
emancipation and enfranchisement of the slave. 

These letters were read by Lincoln, Sumner, Chase and 
Stanton, and all the leading- statesmen with whom I was in- 
timate, with a delight and pleasure which one incident will 
fully illustrate: 

One morning- 1 called early at the White House and was 
seated in the President's room, before he came in. As he 
walked along- his private hallway, I heard him as I supposed 
talking- to himself. He started a little on seeing- me, not ex- 
pecting- to find anyone in his work room at that early hour; and 
at once said, with a g-low on his face: " I was just repeating- 
a passag-e from one of your friend Nasby's letters," and re- 
peated the parag-raph which had so impressed itself on his 
mind. He then added, " I want 3'ou to invite Nasby to come 



— 649 — 

to Washing-ton and make me a visit; and 3'ou may say to him 
that I would be willing" to resig"n the Presidency if I could 
write such letters." Such was the esteem in which Mr. Locke 
was held by all men of ability and g^enius. 

Mr. Locke was also a voluminous and able writer on 
many subjects, and a pronounced partisan. He believed in 
party g-overnment rather than individual g-overnment, and 
therefore labored unweariedly for the success of the Repub- 
lican party. 

Next to his Nasby letters, I reg-ard his "Pulverize the 
rum-power " articles as the ablest papers from his pen. These 
articles undoubtedly struck the hardest and most effective 
blows which have been delivered in recent years against the 
liquor traffic, and have been so recog-nize.l by the ablest men 
who are battling- for the caitco of temperance. 

That Mr. Locke was a many-sided man, all who knew 
him personal!}' well understood. There was a strang-e blend- 
ing of hope and doubt, of humor and sadness, of love and 
hate, in hio character. The hiimorist and man of business, 
however, was but a part of the sum total of his being". 

Some years ago I met him on Broadway, New Yorl^, and 
he invited me to join him. While seated at a table he drew 
from his pocket and read me the hymn which is to be sung- 
here to-day, " Come unto me." I was charmed with its beauty 
and touched with its sentiment and spirit, andcaid: "David, 
read that to me iag-ain," which he did, and in that hour I 
comprehended more clearly the breadth and depth of his 
poetic and relig-ious nature. And it must be, that from this 
relig-ious nature, sprung- the great moral force which he so 
heroically wielded in battling for the rig"ht. 

"We live in deeds, not years, 
The battle of our life is brief. 
The alarm, the strugg"le, the relief, 
Then sleep we side by side." 



Such, in brief, is an imperfect outline of Mr. Locke's life 
as I have known him publicly as a co-worker, and socially as 
a friend, for more than a quarter of a century. 



— 650 — 

And now, as we lay away his earthly body in the grave 
of eternal silence, we reverentl}- and hopefully, oh Father of 
lig-ht and life, commit into Th}- care and keeping" all that is 
immortal of our loyal, steadfast friend. 



When Governor Ashley related the incident and the 
occasion of the writing- of the hymn, "Come Unto Me," by 
Mr. Locke, the voice of the speaker failed him. His eyes 
filled with tears, and his lips quivered with emotion. When 
he had finished speaking- there was scarcely a dry eye within 
the sound of his voice. 

Letter from Bishop B. W. Arnett. 
When selecting the speeches in this volume, and arrang-ing' them for publication, 
especially when reading the foregoing tender and affectionate tributes to Iiovejoy and 
Stephens, and to his personal friend, David R. Locke, the niem.bers of our committee 
repeatedly asked themselves, " What is Mr. Ashlej-'s religious faith?" Unable to de- 
termine, one of our number was requested to write and ask him the question direct. 
The reply was characteristic for its frankness, and it would have given us pleasure to 
publish it (as we have three of his letters), had it not been marked "Personal and 
private." From a mutual friend, to whom we wrote for the information wanted, we 
learned that " Mr. Ashley never held to a written creed, and that he is not a member 
of any church organization." But lie writes, " All of Mr. Ashley's acts and speeches 
breathe the religion of humanity, and tell me more certainly than words, that he has 
a faith, even though he does not adoptland conform to any special form of worship. 
Years ago I knew him quite well, and occasionally talked with him on religious sub- 
jects, and I betray no confidence when I tell you that he has always been a liberal 
giver to charitable and church work, and those who know liim intimately will tell you, 
as I do, that his mind is so organized, and his faith so simple, that both his head and 
heart refuse to be limited to what he calls 'the incompleteness of a written creed.' 
More than once he said to me, 'that, of dogmas old or new, there was in his mind no 
trace of such forms left,' and ' tliat he had outgrown the sectarian exclusiveness of his 
early religious training.' 'The best of creeds,' he would say, 'are but man-made, and 
that he had never been able to give his consent to any religious dogma as a finality, 
nor conform his life to the narrowness of a written creed.'" As I read the man, he is 
in respect to his religious faith'not unlike Whittier and Sumner, Lincoln and Greeley, 
and men of their peculiar type of mind. B. W. Arnett. 



GOVERNOR ASHLEY ON O'CONNELL. 



His Centennial Oration that was Delivered not Where 

IT was Promised, but at the Opera House, where 

it was Welcomed with Generous Applause. 

Toledo, Ohio, August, 1875. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I come not 
to-niglit with a set speech, nor a speech such as I would like 
to make in response to the invitation which bring-s me here; 
but I come to testify in the fewest and most appropriate 
words I can command, my admiration for the heroic life and 
public and private worth of him who for nearly hal-f a cen- 
tury was Ireland's gfreat leader, statesman and patriot. I 
need not tell you after what has been so happily and so elo- 
quently said about Ireland and her g-reat leaders, and what I 
know will be said by those who are to follow me, that I feel 
conscious I ought not to detain you long- with such a speech 
as I will probably make, and I promise 3'ou that I will not. 

Mr. President: Daniel O'Connell was indeed an Irish- 
man, and rig-ht loyally may Ireland claim him as her favorite 
son, and in her heart of hearts cherish his memory with filial 
affection. But O'Connell was also a citizen of the world, in 
the same sense that Washing"ton was a citizen of the world. 
To my mind, however, the great Irish Liberator was more 
like the great liberator of America than any other historic 
American. In his wit and wisdom, in his patience and love 
of justice, and in his sympathy for mankind, O'Connell was 
so much like Lincoln that all who have studied the characters 
of the two men, know that had Lincoln resided in Ireland 
and O'Connell in this country during the g-reat battle of 
each, that the one would have been as heartily for the libera- 

(651) 



— 652 — 

tion of Ireland as the other would have been for the emanci- 
pation of the slaves in America. [Applause.] 

Am I not therefore warranted, and are not all men who 
love liberty warranted, in claiming citizenship with O'Connell, 
and may I n.'t on behalf of over four millions of slaves, so 
recently made free, claim him as one of the noblest and most 
faithful of their early champions? I know that all who have 
read O'Connell's unanswerable appeal ag-ainst slavery will 
say I may. So likewise may the oppressed and wronged of 
every race claim him as their friend and brother. 

In every land beneath the sun, 

' ' Wherever from kindred torn rudely apart, 
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart," 

there might the humblest reach the great heart of O'Connell, 
and they alwa3-s found his hand outstretched with offerings 
of sj-mpathy and succor. [Applause.] 

So grand, broad and noble a man as O'Connell cannot be 
denied recognition as a citizen of the world, and so, as an 
American, I claim an interest in him equally with you, my 
brother Irishman, and with you come here to-night to join in 
appropriately commemorating his centennial. [Applause.] 

The liberal men of all lands and of every race and creed 
were drawn to O'Connell because of his democratic ideas and 
broad, liberal catholic spirit I well remember how my young 
heart went out to him when I first read his fiery and eloquent 
denunciation of American slavery, nor can I forget how my 
esteem for him grew into admiration when I came to know 
that he had the pluck to defy the slaveholders of the world, 
and that he had caused to be painted over the entrance of his 
home the words, "No slaveholder admitted here." After 
that I did not care to know of what race he was nor to what 
country he belonged, nor what religious faith he professed, 
or whether indeed he professed an}-, except that which I 
know he liad, the religion of humanit}-. From that day to 
this I have never ceased to number him among the citizens of 
the world, and I regard him as one of the noblest, grandest 
and best of men. [Applause.] 

But of all the jrreat utterances of O'Connell no one 



— 653 — 

of them has caused me Vo pause so often and think dis- 
passionately, as that wonderful speech in which he declared 
that " No revolution was worth the shedding- of one drop of 
human blood." 

Naturally enoug"h, Ibelong-ed to the party called " young" 
Ireland," whose leaders were O'Brien, Meaher and their en- 
thusiastic compatriots. I deplored their divisions and sor- 
rowed over their failure and fate, and I went back to O'Con- 
nell to remain in hearty accord with him until his death. 
[Applause.] Yet I confess that I have never been able to reach 
or maintain myself on a plane so far beyond the influence of 
"force" as that which declares, " that no revolution is worth 
the shedding- of one drop of human blood." While I admit 
that I am as perplexed with that utterance now,asI wasthen, 
I find that I have gradually come to the conclusion that for 
Ireland in that exig-ency of her struggle, it was master lead- 
ership, and wise statesmanship. [Applause.] That O'Con- 
nell was the directing- spirit of Ireland for forty years is now 
unquestioned; that he fought his great battle with a hope 
that could not be shaken and a faith that never doubted we 
now know; that his leadership sometimes rose to genius and 
to prophecy, we now comprehend. That he was an ideal, 
sanguine, progressive man is also true; and we have come to 
know that those are the men who move the world. In study- 
ing the lives of the great leaders of humanity, we have 
learned that true progress comes only to men and nations 
blessed with hopeful temperaments and an ideal faith. For 
such, beyond the shadowy present shines the golden, hopeful 
future; with this faith we can see the ideal true man, and 
conceive of the ideal just government. Without it there can 
be no progress, no heroism, no civilization. Such a faith 
points us ever upward and onward, making more beautiful 
and spiritual this human life; such a faith was Daniel O'Con- 
nell's; such is the faith of every true leader. Mr. President, 
I need not recount to you and to this audience the story of 
O'Connell's life; his early struggles, his wonderful triumphs 
and untimely death. All this has been presented to you bet' 
ter than I could do it. I may, however, without trespassing 
too long upon your time, pause for a moment to contemplate 
him as a revolutionarv leader and compare him with some of 



— 654 — 

the revolutionary leaders of France. O'Connell believed that in 
order to have stable government the people must be educated 
up to the point of self -government; that the safest and most 
enduring" revolution, was evolution; that justice was stronger 
than baj'onets; that right was more than might; that to be 
permanent, a revolution in Ireland must be a revolution of 
peace rather than a revolution of force; that an appeal to the 
heart and conscience of mankind was far better than a reliance 
on force or fraud or cunning. Hence the foundation upon which 
he builded was equity, which is above justice. With this 
sublime moral force, which is grander than all other forces 
combined, he began his agitation and continued it to the end. 
With perfect consistency and good faith he proclaimed to Ire- 
land and to the world a doctrine so divine in its conception, 
that all mankind paused to listen while he spoke. When 
O'Connell declared that "no revolution was worth the shed- 
ding of one drop of human blood," he poured a broadside into 
the camp of the enemies of liberty more fatal to despotism 
everywhere and more fatal to the enemies of Ireland than any 
battle that she had fought for seven hundred years. It was 
impossible not to be thoughtful after such an utterance at 
such a time by such a man. [Applause.] 

A great general is a leader of armies, but a leader of men 
is such because he is a leader of ideas. Such a man O'Con- 
nell is now admitted to have been by all thinking men. The 
leaders in the French revolution of '93 believed in fate and 
not in God. They estimated men simply as "waves of the 
ocean" in their force and fury. O'Connell recognized truth, 
justice and equity as the triune basis upon which mankind 
might safely unite in a democratic federation of the nations 
of the world. Robespierre, Danton, Maret, permitted no ap- 
peal to truth, -justice or equit}-. To all opposition their 
decree was " death." They erected the guillotine and called 
it "a virgin amazon," which, they said, "exterminated but 
never gave birth." O'Connell proclaimed that above the jus- 
tice of revolutions were the sacred rights of humanity. This 
divine sentiment, wherever accepted by mankind, banishes 
all vengeance and hate, and sends gleams of hope and mercy 
like rays from a lambent flame penetrating the darkness of a 
cavern, to eradicate the outrages of civil war, and the indul- 



— 655 — - 

gence in cruel retaliations and assassinations so often insep- 
arable from it. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, it was O'Connell's surprising- eloquence 
and splendid leadership that awoke Ireland from a slumber 
so fatal to her. He org-anized her patriotic millions on a 
moral battlefield such as the world has never seen; nor 
should I omit to state that when these g-rand armies came 
tog"ether to listen to the voice of the g-reat agitator, number- 
ing at one time over a million souls, there was not a drunken 
man among them; there was no breach of the peace — there 
was simply a gathering of moral forces such as had never be- 
fore in the history of mankind been gathered together to ap- 
peal in the name of justice and peace for their God-given 
rights. The energy which O'Connell displayed, the activity 
which he directed, the fiery temperaments which he restrained, 
the patriotism which he kindled, let us hope, still unites in 
purpose and glows and burns not only in the hearts of his 
country-men but in the hearts of all men everywhere who hate 
oppression and love liberty. [Applause] 

The work he did, the power he wielded, and the influence 
he left behind him, have pronounced his fame and crowned 
his memory with the benedictions of his countrymen and 
mankind; may we not hope that God will ultimately bless a 
land and a people that could produce such a matchless hero? 
[Applause.] 

And now, Mr. President, what shall I say of Old Ire- 
land, the land of poetry and song, of genius and . patriotism 
— Ireland, for so many years crushed and bleeding, but, 
thank God, not yet enslaved! Though she be now sitting 
within the shadow, deepened by the shadows of her material 
ruin, her poets and prophets have, through the open archways 
of thought, caught glimpses of that light which always pre- 
cedes the dawn of the coming morn, and have prophesied her 
deliverance and sung her songs of triumph. By the side of 
her beautiful rivers, from her mountains and her valleys and 
her rockbound coast, there comes a sound of perpetual lamen- 
tation, like the low sighing of the vesper winds through the 
groves of Gethsemane, as when Christ, with weary feet and 
heavy heart, walked through its consecrated shades. As I 
hear it to-night, it is an aspirational and sublime lament, 



— 656 — 

"which must ultimately reach and touch all hearts. It is the 
soul of Ireland from her sorrow and sackcloth supplicating* 
Heaven for justice. Oh, God of the oppressed and disinherited, 
a.long'-suffering' and heroic people, joined b}^ the g"reat-hearted 
among" mankind of every race,kindred and tongue, are to-nig-ht, 
with uplifted voice, appealing" to Thee for the redemption 
and liberation of Ireland. And though Ireland, under the 
wise leadership of O'Connell, has learned to labor and to wait, 
3''et her people at home, as we here to-night, are crying out 
half impatiently, "How long! O Lord, how long!" But, 
whatever may betide, let us keep heart and keep faith, remem- 
bering that as it is with men, so it is with nations, and 
""Whoever bears the cross to-da}-, shall wear the crown to- 
morrow." 

Above all, let us not permit, as did the children of Israel, 
our murmuring discontent to break into open rebellion against 
Him who holds all nations in the hollow of His hand — 

" — For what are we? 
Above our broken dreams and plans, 
God lays, with wiser hands than man's, 
The corner-stones of liberty." 

[Long and hearty applause.] 

Letter from Prof. Henry Y. Arnett, B. S., Columbia, S. C, 
Mr. Ashley made uo claim to be classed with, learned and finished orators. But 
liis direct and manly appeals in behalf of an oppressed and cruelly 'wrong-ed race, en- 
abled him, when these speeches and orations were delivered, to make clear his pur- 
pose and to carry convictions to the hearts of his hearers. The lessons which his 
speeches and heroic life impress upon the writer, is that character and sincerity, unsel- 
fishness and truthfulness, are the true statesman's most desirable weapons. More 
fitting- and appropriate than any thoug-ht I can write, for this foot note, are the lines 
of the poet, which Mr. Ashley in his address on Lincoln, at page 765, quoted and ap- 
plied to the great Emancipator. I now quote and apply them to him; for of a truth, 
we alt know, how heroically and steadfastly during- the darkest nights of our pilgrim- 
age as a race, and when the crimes of this nation against us were merciless, he 
"Faithful stood with prophet finger, 
Pointing- toward the blest to be 
When beneath the spread of heaven, 
Every creature shall be free." 
•'Fearless when the lips of evil 
Breathed their blackness on his name, 
Trusting- in a nobler life time. 
For a spotless after fame." 

Henr-v Y. Arnbtt. 



ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN TOLEDO. 



From the Buckkye Granokr, March, 1876. 



The late St. Patrick celebration in Toledo was larg"ely 
attended by natives of the Emerald Isle who reside in this 
place ; they were accompanied by the Perrysburg- Silver Band. 
The occasion was one of much interest, and closed in the 
evening- with a public meeting- in St. Patrick's Hall. Among- 
the speakers was the Hon. J. M. Ashley, who delivered the 
following- eulog-ium on the life and service of the "Great 
Commoner." 

The next toast was " Daniel O'Connell," to which Gover- 
nor Ashley responded as follows: 



Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: Before 
responding- to the toast just read, I want to thank your com- 
mittee for the very welcome invitation which brings me here 
to-nig-ht. When I came home night before last and found it 
awaiting- me, I resolved that whatever else mig-ht happen, I 
would not repeat the "bull" which I committed at the 
O'Connell Centennial of last 3'ear, by unwittingly delivering- 
a speech to the wrong- audience, I made up my mind that 
whatever " bull" I mig-ht commit, it should not be by going- 
to the "Opera House" instead of St. Patrick's Hall. 

Mr. Chairman, it is fitting and proper that the sons and 
daug-hters of Erin, wherever dwelling- around the globe, 
should come tog-ether, as you have come together to-night, to 
aid in commemorating- and perpetuating- the g-ood name and 
fair fame of Ireland's g-rand heroes. You who have given 
three hundred and sixty-four days of the year to personal and 
material pursuits, can hardly do less than give one day for 

42 (657) 



— 658 — 

old Ireland. I know there are those who say,that for foreig'n- 
born citizens to commemorate any day as 3'ou are now com- 
memorating" this, is but to promote strife and discord, and to 
indulg-e in sentimental speech which can do no g"ood, and may 
do much harm. But if I read the past arig-ht, it is to this 
love of sentiment in the human heart, that every land is in- 
debted for the heroism and patriotism of its sons. To this 
sentiment the world owes its bravest deeds and mart3'rs' 
crowns. It was this sentiment which moved the g^reat heart 
of O'Connell and made him consecrate his life to the cause of 
Ireland, and to the cause of liberty in every land, not forget- 
ting the; four M11.L10N SL,AVES IN America. It was this sen- 
timent of love for their adopted country which caused thou- 
sands of Irishmen, from Montg-omery to Thomas Francis 
Meag'her,to oifer up their lives on the field of battle to defend 
and perpetuate American liberty. "When this sentiment dis- 
appears from among" men, patriotism will die in every land 
beneath the sun. As Father Hannin said to me a moment 
ag"o, " A man who does not love his owncountr}-, cannot love 
his adopted country^" and I may add, nor any country. 

When the emotions which in all times have moved the 
noblest and purest aspirations of mankind, move them no 
more — the mother will forgfet to love the child she bore, and 
both mother and child will forg"ct to love the land of their 
birth. Tkank God this can never be, with any race or kin- 
dred or tong"ue, and because it can never be, the sons and 
daughters of Ireland are here to-nig-ht with many a glad and 
tender memory to consecrate anew this hour with fresh re- 
solves of fidelity to motherland. To enjoy and profit by the 
reflection which the utterance of patriotic sentiment gives, I 
accepted with pleasure your invitation to come here to-night. 
All the higher and better emotions which the love of country 
brings, are stirred afresh within me as I witness the glowing 
enthusiasm of those around me, who in their heart of hearts 
love Ireland and her historic heroes. Heaven forbid that 
any Irishman in America should ever forget the land of his 
birth; let him rather turn to her with deeper devotion, as he 
beholds her sitting in sorrow and sackcloth, waiting for an- 
other great leader, who like O'Connell shall sound the resur- 



— 659 — 

rection trumpet, and teach the world that she is not dead but 
living-. 

Mr. Chairman, the history of Ireland presents one con- 
tinued succession of brilliant and wonderful men. Swift 
and Grattan, Plunkett and Curran, Burrows and Burke, 
Emmet and O'Connell, and a host of others familiar to 
you all, and whom I need not name; but pre-eminent and 
above them all, as a leader, educator and statesman, stands 
the name of Daniel O'Connell. No other name in Irish his- 
tory has made so hopeful the Irish heart, nor so lig-hted up 
the political firmament of Ireland with democratic ideas. 
O'Connell found the Irish people broken, bleeding-, dis- 
heartened, divided, and lifted them from their darkness and 
despair, until they could see the hopeful light of the coming- 
morn. He united the discordant and warring" factions and 
made them one; he educated the people up to a just compre- 
hension of their power and dig-nity and responsibility. In 
short he created a public opinion, which breathed new life 
into the cause of Ireland. By his long"-continued and able agi- 
tation, he secured for Ireland religious toleration, a free press 
and schools, and a representation in Parliament. "With these 
weapons properly wielded the future of Ireland cannot be 
doubted. With these weapons she need no longer "suppli- 
cate," for soon she will have power to dictate her own terms, 
and the wonder of all this is — that O'Connell accomplished 
what he did as the apostle of peace. To the irrepressible 
Irish race he declared, that "no revolution was worth the 
shedding of one drop of human blood." He believed that 
every reform achieved by accident or by force, may be lost by 
accident or force; that only those reforms take root and grow 
which are born of reflection and planted with judgment, and 
are afterwards watered by discussion and education. He 
believed that it was best and safest to engraft the reforms 
desired into the national conscience, before attempting to 
enact them into national law — that only such reforms as 
were based upon the consent of a free and enlightened people 
could stand the test of time. His panacea was an educated 
people with a free ballot; and a government that should be- 
long to no one person or family or dynasty, but belong to all 
her own children. 



— 660 — 

To me, these ideas of O'Connell embocl_v the perfection 
of human statesmanship. Search all the past history of 
Ireland and you will find no record so clear and broad and 
bright as his. Carlisle saj's that "he is God's own appointed 
King whose single word melts all wills into his." What 
praise can exceed this? God grant that Ireland may again be 
blessed with a leader and a hero whose prudence and match- 
less eloquence shall equal O'Connell's, and such a hero and 
leader I believe she is soon again to have; a hero who, when 
he comes, shall complete the great work which O'Connell, 
d3nng, left unfinished, and thus prove himself to be the Christ 
of Ireland's political redemption, so that Ireland from that 
time onward shall stand forth erect and disenthralled, ad- 
ministering her own local government on the basis of liberty, 
federation and peace, as we do here in Ohio. 

"And thou, O Ireland, green and fair, 
Across the waters wild, 
Stretch forth strong arms of loving care, 
And guard thy favorite child." 



CO-OPERATION AND PROFIT-SHARING ! 



Copy op Circular addressed to the Stockhoi^ders op 

The Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan 

Railway Company. 



Gentlemen: After careful deliberation, I have deter- 
mined, with the approval of the Board of Directors, to submit 
to the stockholders of this Company, at the annual meeting" 
appointed for Wednesday, April 20, 1887 (for their acceptance 
or rejection), the following- propositions touching- " profit 
sharing," in addition to the regular wages paid by this Com- 
pany to each of its officers (except its President), and all its 
emplo3-ees. 

The direct allotment to the laborer, of a share in the prof- 
its produced by his labor, is a method of distribution as old 
as human history; a method older than the " wag-e system," 
and one for which we have the approving- judg-ment of many 
of the ablest thinkers, both in this country and in Europe. 

I propose for the benefit of all who now are, or who here- 
after may be, interested in the prosperity of this Company, 

Letter from B. T. Tanner, D. D., one of the Bishops of the A. M. E. Church, 
I was never more impressed with the justice of "profit [sharing'" than in a conver- 
sation I had a few years since with a resident stockholder of one of the street railways 
of our city, Philadelphia, Pa. Said he, " A few years ag"o the shares of this road were 
valued and sold at $15; now they are worth and soldat more than $100 a share." The 
words had scarcely fallen from his lips when we beg^an to think of the absolute injustice 
of the method which gaye every cent of this silent growth tojthe capitalist; not allowing 
one penny of it to go to the laborer — to the driver and to the conductor, to whom its in. 
crease could in part be credited as justly as to the capitalist. When the shares were 
at their minimum value, they received their $1.50 or $2 per day as did the capitalist re- 
ceive his 6 or 10 per cent, as the case may be. But in the course of years, when by the 
joint labor of the driver and the conductor, blended with the money of the capitalist,the 
value of the shares increased almost tenfold, what do we see ? We see capital appro* 
priating to itself that which should be common to both. This, we say, is manifestly 
unjust, and sooner or later^this method of conducting business must be changed, and 
give place to a method more in harmony with what is right. These drivers and con- 
ductors were not the men they were when they first entered the employ of this company. 
They were older and weaker, and less prepared to continue the hard struggle for life. 
Had they been allowed to share in the silent growth of the value of the property they 
were laboring to create they would have been infinitely better prepared to enter upon 
the winter of old age. Governor Ashley touches the heart and interest of the toiling 
millions in the right place, in this and other addresses on this subject. 

B. T. Tanner. 

(661) 



— 662 — 

especially its officials and employees, to blend with the pres- 
ent wag-e system the more ancient and equitable one of " profit 
sharing"." 

I submit this proposition for the approval of the stock- 
holders, because I believe that the two S3'stems, if properly 
united and practically administered, will be a decided im- 
provement upon the present wag"e system, and advantag-eous 
alike to employer and employed. 

For man}' years I have favored substantiall}' the plan of 
co-operative labor and "profit sharing," which I now pro- 
pose for adoption by this Company. In my opinion we have 
reached a period in the history of the " Ann Arbor " Com- 
pan}'' which justifies me in submitting the propositions here- 
inafter made to the stockholders, for their ratification or re- 
jection. 

And as I do not claim that the method of distribution 
proposed is beyond improvement, 1 cordiall}- invite such 
amendments as jnay suggest themselves to any of the stock- 
holders or employees who ma}' receive a printed copy of these 
proposed rules and regulations. 

RULE FIRST. 

The Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway 
Company hereby stipulates and agrees to pay to each of its 
officers (except its President) and to all its employees a divi- 
dend, as provided in the terms and conditions following: 

All officials and employees of said Company who shall 
have been continuously in its service for five (5) ^-ears or 
more, shall in addition to the regular wages paid to each, re- 
ceive an amount which shall equal the proportion hereinafter 
named of such dividends on its capital stock as ma}' be de- 
clared by the Board of Directors of this Company in any year. 



RULE SECOND. 

The basis on which a proportion of the dividends earned 
by this Company are to be paid to each officer and employee 
shall be as follows: 



— 663 — 

The Board of Directors, when declaring- a dividend, shall 
add to the total amount of capital stock outstanding", the 
gross sum paid by the Company, in salaries and wagfes, for 
the preceding- year, to all its employees and officials (except 
its President) who shall have been continuously in its ser- 
vice for the five (5) years next preceding- the declaration of 
such dividends, and each of such officers and employees shall 
be entitled to receive in any year in which a dividend shall 
be declared, a dividend on an amount equal to his salary for 
the year preceding-, as if he were the owner of a number of 
shares of the capital stock of the Company to a like amount, 
at their par value. 

RULE THIRD. 

Kvery officer and en;ployee who shall have been in the 
service of the Company continuously for twenty (20) years or 
more, and voluntarily retires from its service with an honor- 
able discharg-e, shall be entitled to receive, and have delivered 
to him, a certificate of the full paid-up capital stock of the 
Company, which shall equal in amount at its par value, the 
total sum paid him as wag-es for the last year he was in the 
service of the Company. 

RULE FOURTH. 

If any officer or employee of the Company as aforesaid, 
shall be so disabled, while in the line of active duty, as to be 
unable to resume his place for a period of six months or more, 
he shall be entitled to receive a certificate of the full paid-up 
capital stock of the Company, which shall equal in amount, 
at its par value, the g-ross sum paid him for the year imme- 
diately preceding- his said disabilit3% And if any officer or 
employee shall lose his life while in the line of active duty, 
his wife, if he has one, and if not, his legal representatives, 
shall be entitled to receive a certificate of the full paid-up 
capital stock of the Company which shall equal in amount at 
its par value, five (5) times the gross sum paid him for the 
year next preceding his death. Provided, however, that this 



— 664 — 

rule shall not appl}' in cases where a claim for damag-es is 
made in the courts. 

RULB FIFTH. 

These rules and regulations touching- the mode and man- 
ner of paying" dividends and stock allotments to the ofdcers 
and employees of the Company, shall not be amended or abro- 
gated except at a regular annual meeting of the stockholders 
of this Company, and then only after due notice has been 
g"iven to the stockholders, thirty daj-s prior to the said reg^ular 
annual meeting, that a proposition will be made at said meet- 
ing- to amend or abrog-ate said rules and regulations, which 
notice shall be published by the Secretary, with a printed 
statement of the change or changes proposed. 

RULE SIXTH. 

The President and Board of Directors shall have the 
power and authority' necessar}- to carr}' into effect the fore- 
g-oing plan of profit sharing* and stock allotment. 

THE PLAN EXPLAINED. 

It is not my purpose in this plan of allotment and 
" profit sharing"" to make a gift to the officers and employees 
of the Company, without value received. It is not intended 
to take from the dividends due the shareholders, and arbi- 
trarily add to the wages of the employees without an equiva- 
lent. The bonus which it is proposed to pay to each officer 
and employee is to be paid out of the additional earnings and 
savings of the Compan}-, which saving's and earning-s it is 
believed will be materially increased by the activity, economy 
and fidelity of officials and employees alike, and b}' a watch- 
fulness which must result in decreasing" accidents, and in 
securing a better understanding" of the responsibilities and 
du'aes of each, as also a more perfect co-operation between 
all who are in the service of the Company. 

It will be observed that in this plan forpa^-ing" dividends, 



— 665 — 

the oflS.cers and employees run no risk of pecuniary loss. 
They do not own the stock and cannot be held for damages, 
but each will receive a dividend when earned by the Com- 
pany, as if he were the owner of the stock. The wag^es of 
each is guaranteed and paid by the Company, and must be 
paid, even when the Company is losing mone}-. It will be 
seen by this simple statement that Capital must run the risk 
of all losses, and pay all wages and daily expenses, whether 
earned by the Company or not. 

In the practical administration of great corporate trusts, 
especially in the case of a Railroad Company, one soon learns 
as he cannot learn elsewhere, how absolutely inseparable are 
the true interests of Capital and Labor. 

This plan of allotment is proposed in the confident belief 
that it will largely increase the net earnings of the Compan}^ 
and promote zeal, economy and general efficiency; that it will 
also prove itself to be a valuable educator, and teach the 
necessity of sobriety and fidelity; and that mutual confidence 
and good-will is better for all than contentions and strikes. 
If this plan of allotment and pajang dividends is ap- 
proved by the stockholders and is fairly tested, it is expected 
that the entire dividend paid by the Company in any one year 
to its officers and employees, will be more than earned by 
savings from loss and waste. And when each officer and em- 
ployee is properly educated, he will understand that w^hen- 
ever he permits or causes a useless waste, or by negligence or 
disobedience of orders an accident results, that he always 
brings upon himself and his associate employees, a loss pro- 
portionately corresponding to that suffered by the Compan}'. 
The education and discipline which the plan of "profit 
sharing " and stock allotment above proposed must of neces- 
sity introduce, will, it is believed, be of great economic value 
in securing to the Company the kind and character of men 
who will desire to remain with it. Naturally enough, the 
sober, industrious and competent men (especially those with 
families) will seek and remain in the employ of a Company 
which recognizes the plan of "profit sharing" as herein pro- 
posed, and naturally enough every temperate, prudent man 
who saves his money, will prefer the same class of men for 
his associates, and the Company can rely on such men to aid 



— 666 — 

it in securing" and keeping- only the best and most trustworthy 
men in its service. 

As a rule, the temperate saving- man is a better workman 
and more reliable than one who is intemperate and improvi- 
dent. Successful economy on the part of an employee, bring-s 
stability and contentment. Every intellig-ent, competent 
railroad manag-er estimates such a man at his actual worth, 
and desires to increase his wag-es in proportion to the amount 
which he saves or earns for the Company, and nothing- can be 
more gratifying- to such a manag-er than to see his workmen 
securing- homes of their own, and laying- up something- for a 
rain}- day. 

I propose to make four (4) periods of five (5) years each 
(or 20 years) as the maximum period of service; and require a 
period of five (5) years' continuous service as a condition to 
securing- a proportion of the profits earned b}- the Company. 
And it is also proposed for the consideration of the Board of 
Directors, whether, in the near future, it ma}- not be desirable 
and equitable to g-rant in addition to the dividends and stock 
allotment provided, an increase in the wag-es paid each of&cer 
and employee who may have remained in the service of the 
Compan}- for two or more periods of five (5) j-ears each, and 
especially for the fourth (4) period, which completes the 
twenty (20) years' continuous service, at which time it is sug-- 
gested stipulation oug-ht to be made, that any of such em- 
ployees could then voluntarily retire or be retired by the Com- 
pany, each person so retired or voluntarilj^ retiring- to receive 
from the Company the amount of paid-up capital stock, as 
hereinbefore provided. 

In addition to the "plan" of profit sharing- as herein 
proposed and an increase in compensation for a continuous 
service of ten years or more as recommended, it is sug-g-ested 
that in lieu of any claim ag-ainst the Compan}- for damag-es 
because of accidents, that a fund for accident and life insur- 
ance be provided at an early day, in such manner as shall 
seem to the Board of Directors just and equitable, and pro- 
viding also that all promotions so far as practicable shall be 
made from among- the officials and emploj-ees long-cst in the 
service of the Company. J. M. Ashley, l^resident. 

Toledo, Ohio, January 24, 1887. 



THE FEDERATION OF RAILROAD WORKERS 



And all Wage-workers — Gov. Ashley's Address, Junb 

10th, 1891, TO THE International Train Dispatchers' 

Convention, on Co-operation and Strikes. 



from the TOLEDO BLADE. 



Governor Ashley and his position on labor organizations 
and labor questions, with particular reference to railroads, is 
clearly set forth in an address read to the train dispatchers, 
who met in international convention in Toledo, June 10th, 
1891. 

address. 

Dear Sir: It would have been a welcome task to me 
could I have accepted the invitation, with which you 
honored me, to address your association at its contemplated 
annual convention in Toledo on the 10th inst. You ask me 
to favor your association with my views upon the problem of 
railway employees' organizations, so that you can read the 
same to your delegates assembled in convention. 

The opinions which I hold touching organizations of 
working-men and the relations of capital and labor, are the 
logical outgrowth of my early light against the right of cap- 
ital to legal ownership in man. An intelligent discussion of 
slave ownership involved of necessity thequestionof the prop- 
er relation between labor and capital. Naturally enough, he 
who denied the right of slave barons to the ownership of 
their laborers as chattels, would deny the right of capital to 
enslave labor by any law or custom, which the hatred of race 

Cb67) 



— 668 — 

and spirit of caste, or the avarice or selfishness of unscrupu- 
lous men mig-ht invent. 

I believe that co-operation and profit-sharing" will ulti- 
matcl}- prove to be the most practical, and bj far the best solu- 
tion of the labor problem. 

This idea has, within a few years, commended itself to 
the considerate judg-ment of many of the ablest men in Europe 
and in this countr}*. The plan for profit-sharing* which I pre- 
pared and which the Ann Arbor company adopted is, in my 
opinion, applicable to all kinds of industries in which it may 
be necessar}' to employ ten or ten thousand men. 

It is, as I see it, especiall}^ adapted to railroading* in all 
its departments, and can be used in all business co-partner- 
ships or public corporations of whatsoever kind, and even in 
farming*. 

When laboring* men shall have been properly educated, 
co-operation and profit-sharing* will, in m}- opinion, as cer- 
tainly take the place of the present wag*e system as the wag*e 
system succeeded slavery and serfdom. I send you b}' this 
mail, under separate cover, a cop}- of one of my annual re- 
ports. 

In the appendix you will find the plan which I favor, to- 
g-ether v/ith a brief explanation of its practicability. An ex- 
amination of this plan will disclose the fact that it is just, 
alike to employed and emploj^er, and in an}- event, is safe for 
all emplo3'ees. 

Intellig-ent men comprehend that the first dut)^ of all rail- 
road men, emplo3^er and employed, is to stand tog*ether. The 
interest of one is be3^ond question the interest of all. 

Whatever destroj^s the property or damag*es the business 
of a railroad company, tends to decrease the wag*es of em- 
ployees, or both. The parasites who camp along* the line of 
every railroad, and without visible means, subsist by plunder 
and disreputable practices, are in larg*e part the result of con- 
ditions produced b}- railroad men in their unwise and indefen- 
sible conflict with each other, especially' in the strikes, which 
incompetent and unworthy leaders have so recklessl}' ordered, 
to end onl}' in defeat and disaster. No thoug*htful man will 
ever attempt to justify or to excuse three-fourths of all the 
strikes which, in the past twenty years or more, railroad men 



^669 — 

have reluctantly been forced into by men utterly incompetent 
to lead or direct a movement so far-reaching- in its con- 
sequences as a strike on any ordinary line of railroad. 

When to the delay, and sometimes to the entire suspen- 
sion of the leg-itimate business of a community depending" on 
such a line of railroad, there is added the wanton and mali- 
cious destruction of property belong-ing- to the railroad com- 
pany, a point has been reached which demands the united ac- 
tion of all honorable railroad men, for the suppression and 
exclusion of men g^uilty of such nefarious acts from the ranks 
of reputable railroad employees. 

The accumulated property of the world belongs, not 
wholly to its individual owners, but in part to the citizens of 
the world. He who wantonly or deliberately destroys the 
property which leg^ally belongs to him, because his own labor, 
or the labor of his ancestors had produced it, is guilty of an 
offense punishable by the laws of all civilized states. 

He who destroys the property of another, because of 
some misunderstanding or disagreement, commits a crime 
which should exclude him from the companionship or recog- 
nition of all manly men. 

I have never met more than two or three railroad man- 
agers who were not ready and anxious to promote the inter- 
ests of their employees, and these two or three men were un- 
fitted by nature and training for such responsible positions. 

A large majority of railroad managers of my acquaint- 
ance are broad and liberal-minded men, who came up from the 
ranks of railroaders, and are in hearty sympathy with the 
aspirations of the rank and file, not only because they are by 
nature manly oen, but because they themselves have been of 
the rank and file and know by their own experience and ob- 
servation what the wants and hopes of each are. 

I, therefore, repeat that the first duty of all railroad men, 
employer and employed, is to stand together and unitedly 
repel the unjust and dishonest attacks made upon railroad 
men and railroad property. 

All men who have given the subject any reflection know 
that organized capital, with steam and electricity, has so 
changed the commercial and business forces of the world that 
to-day five men, by using this new power, can do the work 



— 670 — 

•which thirt}' or forty ^'ears ag-o required one hundred men. 
This fact, now g-enerall}' recognized, has prompted many of the 
thinking- men who arc in sj^mpathy with the wag"e-workers, 
both in this country and in Europe, to urge disorganized 
labor to organize, not to exclude other men from work, nor to 
dp any criminal act, but for the purpose of securing the rights 
and bettering the conditions of all workers and ultimatel}^ to 
obtain a business co-partnership with capital, not only in 
railroading, but in all industries, on a basis just and equi- 
table to both capital and labor. 

You ask me what plan of organization men should adopt 
to secure this end. That is the problem of problems, and the 
man who solves it will be entitled to the recognition and 
gratitude of all wage-workers the world over, as also of all 
classes and conditions of men, because, v/hatevcr plan may 
ultimatel}' be adopted by railroad men, it m.ust, in order to be 
satisfactory and enduring, commend itself to the great body 
of wage-workers in all departments of human industry. 

I therefore earnestly desire that the intelligent railroad 
men of this country should adopt some such plan of co-opera- 
tion and profit-sharing as I have suggested, to the end that 
it may be by them formally presented to all railroad owners 
and managers for their of&cial action. Such a presentation, 
on the part of practical railroad men, would secure an able 
and prompt discussion of the principle involved, and I confi- 
dentl}^ believe in its final adoption with such modifications and 
additions as men of brains and experience may approve. 

To this end, and to secure such an organization as the 
importance and magnitude of their interest demands, I favor 
the federation of all railroad workers in State organizations, 
with the entire body in all States and Territories represented 
in one national organization, in which every department of 
railroad workers shall have a proportional representation ac- 
cording to number of members residing in each State and Ter- 
ritory. 

Believing that in this world the best that any mortal has 
is that which every mortal shares, I hold that the interest of 
each is the interest of all. 

If this proposition be admitted, then a national federation 
of railroad men, and subordinate federations for each State 



— 671 — 

and Territorj^ should be org-anized, into which all reputable 
railroad workers should be welcome, who voluntarily desire 
to affiliate with such an org-anization by subscribing- to its 
constitution. 

The constitution of this national federation, after defin- 
ing clearly the purposes of the organization and the powers 
and duties of all State and Territorial organizations affiliat- 
ing with it, should especially provide the machinery by which 
all questions touching the relation of railroad workers to 
railroad companies will be heard and determined. In each 
duly organized State and Territorial and subordinate associa- 
tion, every member whose name properly appears on the roll 
should have the right secured to him to vote by ballot on all 
questions submitted to the organization by authority of the 
national or of any State or Territorial federation; and espe- 
cially in his local assembly should the right of the ballot be 
secured to him on the demand of one-tenth of the members 
present at any meeting. 

In this country every .duly qualified elector has a right to 
vote by ballot for the representatives of his choice, whether 
that official be the President of the United States, a State of- 
ficial or private citizen; why, then, should not every railroad 
Avorker have secured to him the right to vote by ballot in his 
local federation on every question affecting his individual in- 
terest, or that of the general interest of the organization? 
As no railroad man would be permitted to vote in any local 
council who was not a member in good standing, so only 
those who are members and voters would be eligible to any 
official position as a representative to either the State or na- 
tional assemblies. 

Experience must have taught every thoughtful railroad 
man that all officials and delegates to represent them in any 
deliberative body, ought, after due notice of the time and place 
of such election, to be elected by ballot, and not by a howling- 
mob, under the management of unscrupulous and unworthy 
leaders. 

At such elections the minority should always have secur- 
ed to them the right of representation in proportion to the 
ballots cast by them; no more, no less. 

Provisions should be made in the national constitution of 



— 672 — 

such a federation for obtaining- the deliberate opinion of ever}- 
member in each State and Territory on all important ques- 
tions submitted for official action. To do this practical!}', 
special provision must be made to secure proportional repre- 
sentation from all local, district and State assemblies, to the 
minority as well as the majority, when sending" delegates to 
district or State, or to the national assembly. 

The concurrent vote of not less than two-thirds, and 
sometimes three-fourths of the representatives in district. 
State or national assemblies should be required to adopt any 
new or untried proposition, such for instance as the adoption 
of my plan of co-operative profit sharing-. 

If a proposition, touching- any subject worthy the consid- 
eration of either district or State federations or the national 
assembl}', cannot, after open debate command a two-thirds 
vote or even three-fourths vote of men whose personal inter- 
ests are all in favor of a just disposition of this subject, its 
defects must be of a character to render its attempted enforce- 
ment by a mere numerical majority, ver}- questionable. 

Every individual wag-e-worker, who voluntarih' combines 
in such an org-anization, does so not only to protect and pro- 
mote his own interests, but to secure the rig-hts and interests 
of all workers. He cannot afford, and will not willing-ly put 
himself under subjection to an org-anization, in which he 
practically has no voice. That he will have no voice in such 
an org-anization unless he has secured to him the rig-ht to 
vote by ballot, experience has amply demonstrated. 

And I af6.rm that unless a concurrent vote of not less 
than two-thirds, representing- the minority,as well as the ma- 
jority of the org-anization, can be secured to each member on 
all questions touching- individual freedom, he is in dang-er of 
being- subjected to a despotic power, which mig-ht deprive 
him of the libert}- of disposing- of his own labor, and so hcdg-e 
him about, as to make the bettering- of his condition in life 
impossible. 

It will hardly be claimed that a minority of the org-ani- 
zation should be clothed with the power of administering- it. 

The point to be reached is to collect, with something- like 
mathematical precision, the deliberate and unbiased judge- 
ment of every railroad worker, on every proposition in which 



— o/o — 

all who are members of the org-anization are interested, di- 
rectly or indirectly. I therefore would provide in the national 
and State constitution that no separate or local org"anization 
of railroad workers, such, for instance as the "Association of 
Train Dispatchers," should have the power on their own mo- 
tion and without the affirmative vote of two-thirds of all the 
workers or employees on any road, who were members of the 
organization, to declare a strike or do any act hostile to the 
interest of the majority of the employees of such railroads. 
I would require the question to be first submitted by the of- 
ficers of the State org-anization to all subordinate affiliated 
councils in the State or along- the line of railroad so affected 
by the proposed strike. Such a constitutional provision 
should secure deliberation and a vote by ballot to all railroad 
workers who were members of the federation and on the pa}^ 
roll of the company on which it was proposed to order a strike. 
All such ballots should be printed, simply yes or no, and a 
proposition of that character ought to require a vote of not 
less than two-thirds in its favor to authorize the officers of 
any State federation to order a strike. If it be objected that 
a vote of two-thirds is too large and that only a majority of 
those present and voting ought to be sufficient, even though 
a minority of the total federations interested — the answer is, 
that, as a rule, there is always doubt about the practicabil- 
ity or necessity for the passage in the national Congress or 
in State legislatures or in any city government of any act or 
law, such as declaring war or amending the Constitution, or 
even creating a city bonded debt, for posterity to pay. Pru- 
dence requires that such acts should be done by all civil gov- 
ernments only after careful deliberation, public discussion, 
and not less than two-thirds, and sometimes a three-fourths 
vote of the assemblies charged with the duty of such legisla- 
tion. 

We cannot amend our national Constitution unless Con- 
gress,by a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and House, 
concur in submitting a plain and definite proposition, and 
then it requires an affirmative vote of three-fourths of the 
States to ratify it to make it a part of the Constitution. 

In some States a proposition to amend the constitution 
43 



— 674—. 

must have passed both, houses of the State legislature by a 
two-thirds vote two years in succession, and then be sub- 
mitted to the electors of such State for their acceptance or 
rejection b}' a direct vote, yes or no. No intelligent man can 
afford to be less careful when providing for the protection of 
his individual rights. 

A recognition of this conservative principle in all organ- 
izations of wage-workers and especially in a federation of 
railroad men, such as I have suggested, is an absolute neces- 
sity, as a condition to permanence and success. 

It is not possible to make an organization live and suc- 
ceed by trickery and fraud. 

Temporary success ma}' be and sometimes has been secured 
by tricker}^ and fraud, but in the long run injustice and crime 
are doomed to defeat, and when crime goes down there 
always go with it the men guilty of doing the wrong acts 
which gave them temporary triumph. 

On all well-ordered railroads the importance and respon- 
sibility of the train dispatcher's department is fully recogniz- 
ed, and it ought not to be forgotten b}- any wage-worker that 
in all departments of human industry " responsibility " car- 
ries with it corresponding opportunities. From the ranks of 
the Train Dispatchers' Association are certain to come in the 
future, as in the past, many of our able railroad managers 
and prominent officials. 

The whole world admires a just and manly man. It 
therefore requires no seer or prophet to predict that in every 
conflict with exacting and unjust managers such an organi- 
zation of railroad workers as I have outlined, administered 
with prudence and dignity, will alwa3's win. 

If you acquit yourselves like men, and with fraternal 
dutv consecrate 3'our daily toil, you cannot be defeated. On 
such a platform you have but to 

" Stand firm, and all the world shall see 
Your light shine out o'er land and sea." 

J. M. Ashley. 
C. E. Case, Esq., 

Secretary Train Dispatchers' Association of America. 



EXTRACTS 

From Governor Ashley's First Address in the Congres- 
sional Campaign of 1890. 



Hon. C. A. King- introduced Governor Ashley in a short 
speech. He said that the Republican Congressional conven- 
tion, on the 10th of October, had chosen a candidate for Con- 
gress. That candidate had been notified and had accepted. 
He desired simply to present to the audience Governor 
Ashley. 

Applause again followed when the Governor stepped for- 
ward and began to speak. He said: 

Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow- 
Citizens all: Your cordial reception and old-fashioned 
greeting is like a Highland welcome; and I accept it in the 
spirit in which it is given and thank you for it with all my 
heart. 

In accepting the unsolicited nomination which the Re- 
publican ^Congressional convention of this district tendered 
me on the 10th instant, I feel that it is due to both you and 
myself at the outset to state frankly that I accept the nomi- 



(675) 



— 076 — 

nation, not^because I personally desire a seat in the Cong^ress 
of the United States, with all its responsibilities and thank- 
less labor, but because I believe it to be a duty, and because 
I sincerely believe there are formidable forces at work, which, 
if unchecked, must drift the nation and party into conditions 
of peril and disaster. [Applause.] 

To avert these, will, in m}' opinion, require not onlv the 
united efforts of the Republican party, but the heart}' co-op- 
eration of the able men of all sections and parties. 

It will be my duty to present to 3'ou, in the few addresses 
which I shall be able to make during the short canvass on 
which we are entering", such facts and such arguments touch- 
ing the situation of the country, and the tendencies of which 
I speak as may, peradventure, contribute something to arouse 
thinking men to the gravity of the impending conflict before 
us, that they may be induced to call a halt and ask them- 
selves the question, " Whither, as a nation, are we drifting?" 

The older citizens 01 Toledo and Northern Ohio are fa- 
miliar with my manner of speech, and all know that 1 am in- 
capable of concealment or evasion. In every political can- 
vass I ever made, whether a candidate or not, I stated the 
issue with such plainness that no one could misunderstand or 
honestly misinterpret me. [Applause.) 

I have always held that a public speaker should speak with 
frankness, simplicity and directness. That, first of all, he 
should so impress his individuality upon his audience as to 
make every thought he expressed glow with a sincerity 
which should stamp itself, not only on the hearts and minds 
of his hearers, but even on the coldest printed page, that he 
should so far forget his surroundings as to lose all conscious- 
ness of self, and with quiet earnestness for his only rhc"oric, 
make h's appeal as one who sees the truth, and whose hpscan 
utter that only which he sees and believes. [Applause.] 

I should like to come before vou when I shall have more 
time to discuss the great political Questions at issue, but 
from the hour we reached Sandusky one delay followed an- 
other, and It would be doing vou great injustice to keep you 
longer^ I will not at thiS laie hour undertake to speak as 1 
had iniendeJ, prior to mv detention at Sandusky. 1 have ac- 
cepted the nomination and I stand on the platform. I may 



— 677 — 

say m}' business is to defend the platform on which I stand. 
I shall confine myself to the discussion of national issues, 
and shall not allow m3^self to be diverted from them by any 
side issue on which I shall have no vote in Cong-ress. My 
duty to the other counties in the district, and my duty to the 
Republicans, should be to hold a steady hand. 

[Someone on the left here cried out, "How do you stand 
on the gas question?" Turning* towards his questioner the 
Governor made no hesitation, but replied: " I intend to stand 
for Toledo, and as I have no vote in Cong-ress on the gas 
question, I will say nothing about it." The applause follow- 
ing was spontaneous.] 

I stand for Toledo [the Governor continued] , and have been 
struggling for thirty-nine j'ears to build her up. I have at 
heart as much as any man, her interest and prosperity. 
Moreover, we may differ in the method by which we are to 
get that prosperity, and as long as I don't have to vote upon 
it in Congress, I shall not undertake to reconcile the differ- 
ence. If a man should ask me what is my religion, I should 
probably tell hdm that it was none of his business. If I was 
a candidate for bishop or pope, I should recognize the justice 
of that question and answer it. If I was a candidate for tlje 
city council of Toledo, I should recognize the justice of 
questions on local interest. I do not intend to evade any 
question that can be of possible importance in this campaign. 
I should not ignore them for the sake of the fight I propose 
to make in this district. When I was -first elected as a repre- 
sentative in Congress I was a very young man. I made up 
my mind that I would go slow and safe. 

I may have made mistakes, but whatever Ldid, are mat- 
ters of record. The slanderous hearsayers cannot put their 
fingers on a single vote to which they object or you object. 
They cannot point to a single public or private speech express- 
ing a sentiment to which you would object. All I ask of you 
is to turn to the records, as to any slanders that may have 
been circulated twenty years ago. I don't care enough for an 
election to make a single dodge. If anybody asked me how 
I built the Ann Arbor road, I should probably tell him that 
it was none of his business. I got gray in doing it. "While 
I was building it I had to borrow money, and agreed that 



— 678- 

rti}' lips should be sealed politicall}', and I would keep out of 
politics. But the money is paid, and I am free to talk poli- 
tics now. 

Now, gentlemen, on all the bills before the last Congress 
the Republican part}- was in the main right. Among them was 
the tariff bill. I voted for the old tariff bill, and I should have 
voted for this one had I been in the present Congress. [Great 
applause.] There may be provisfons in it for which I would 
not have voted in Committee of the Whole, but if a bill 
has 70 or 80 per cent, of my ideas in it and I can't get 90, it 
will receive my support, and I'll take 80 percent. No interest 
of the city shall escape my attention. I am the only man 
who ever made a speech in Congress, booming Toledo. 
[Laughter.] I don't think Toledo lost anything, gentlemen, 
whenever material interests were at stake when I was there. 
I may be ahead of my party now, as I was in the old anti-slavery 
days, but the man who is ahead of his column, and falling 
with his face to the foe, is a great deal better soldier than 
any man who is skulking in the rear, and dropping out at 
the first opportunity. [Applause.] 

I have, as most of you know, just returned from a pleas- 
ant sojourn on the continent. While there I was not idle, 
ahd saw much that was both interesting and instructive. 
Even the old ruins taught impressive lessonso 

The crumbling castles and prisons, and monasteries, all 
told of a despotism and grandeur, built on the unrequited 
toil and suffering and sorrow of the million, to gratif}' the 
pride and selfishness, the vanit}- and ambition of the few. 

The press, the schools and colleges, with the co-opera- 
tion of commerce and steam and electricit}', have abolished 
the old barbarism and changed, let us hope for the better, the 
old order of things. But the immense standing armies of 
Europe are eating up the substance of the nations, and 
stamping with an iron hand, submission and endurance on 
the character of the people. This could not be otherwise 
with a standing army of 3,000,000 men, equipped with all the 
modern weapons of destructive warfare and drilled to obey 
the orders of their commanders-in-chief. Each of the so- 
called "great powers" can, on short notice, transport from 
300,000 to 1,000,000 men, by steam, on land and water to any 



— 679 — 

objective point within their dominions, and hurl them against 
an invading- army or use them to crush any internal insurrec- 
tion or rebellion. So formidable are these g-reat armies, and 
so thoroug-hly do they crush out all freedom of thought and 
action that they practically reduce all classes and conditions 
of men to enforced and abject silence, and everywhere an 
American recognizes the fact that even modern Europe is 
old, and that her people are sullenly obeying the bugle call, 
and keeping lock-step to the music of fife and drum. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Wherever, on the continent, I cast my eyes, I saw that 
even the young were old in manner and speech, and their 
faces wore a subdued and anxious look, as if life was a serious 
struggle with them. In our country you will find even the 
old young, and a vivacity in all, which is born of the fresh- 
ness and hope of youth. With our people you see the 
elastic step and stately tread of vigorous manhood, a condition 
which is the natural outgrowth of personal liberty and per- 
sonal independence. 

No intelligent foreign observer who visits our shores can 
fail to note the marked difference in the characteristics oi a 
people who live under a government of force and those who 
live under a government of consent. [Applause.] 

What wonder then that on Tuesday last, as I steamed 
up the magnificent harbor of New York and my eyes caught 
sight of the colossal statue of "Liberty Enlightening the 
World," and I saw floating in the breeze on every hand that 
banner of matchless beauty, which symbolizes the dignity 
and sovereignty of my country, that there should have welled 
up, as there did, from my heart to my lips, in glad.acclaim, 
the words of our national hymn: 

"My country, ' tis of thee. 
Sweet land of liberty, 
Of thee I sing." 

[Applause.] 

Mr. Chairman: There are before me to-night those who 
will live to see the population of our country number 100,000- 



— GSO — 

000 or more — a population of manl}-, self-reliant, indepen- 
dent men, because trained in the school of freedom. A pop- 
ulation having- a common lang-uage, a common interest and a 
common destin3'; into whose care and keeping" there has been 
committed the most priceless political heritage ever vouch- 
safed to man on earth; and throughout all our broad domain, 
from hamlet to city, on river and lake, from the summit of 
every wind-beaten mountain, and in the quiet homes of every 
sheltered valley, from the fragrant shade of the sweet mag- 
nolia blossom to where our chill north winds sigh throug-h 
the stately pines; everywhere, from center to circumference 
and from ocean to ocean there shall g"o up from all hearts and 
all lips but one aspiration and that for the unity and g"lory 
and grandeur of the republic; there shall be recorded but one 
oath, that of fidelity to the Constitution and loj'-alty to the 
flag, and all national songs shall be songs of thanksgiving- 
and songs of triumph. And everj'where beneath the nation's 
ensign there shall be heard but one malediction and but one 

INVOCATION, DISASTER, DEFEAT and DEATH to him who DE- 
SERTS or DISHONORS or betrays that flag-, and life and health 
and JOY to him who dwells in peace beneath its radiant folds. 
[Continuous applause. And the band struck up " America," 
as the vast audience began to leave the building-.] 



NIEIVlORIAIv ADDRESS 

AT Wauseon, May, 1892. 



Mr. Prksident and Ladies and GentIvEmen, Fei^low- 
ciTizENS ali.: I need not tell 3^ou that your g^enerous greeting- 
quickens my pulse-beats and stirs my heart with pleasurable 
emotions. You can all see, without my telling- you, how glad 
I am to be with 3'ou to-day. I do not wish to disg-uise the 
satisfaction I feel at receiving- from you such an old-time 
welcome. 

This occasion recalls to m}^ mind other meeting-s of a like 
character here in Fulton County, and man}" faces once well 
known among- you; as also, the fragrant memory of scores of 
grand men and women who in the days agone, were my unself- 
ish steadfast friends. 

Many of those now hidden from our earthly sight were 
moral heroes, worthy of our remembrance and of honorable 
mention, "not only here, but everywhere. In my heart of 
hearts, there is always a memorial tribute ready to be offered 
up to the memory of such noble friends as have passed from 
here to the realms beyond the stars. 

Mr. President: Every memorial service, however simple, 
recognizes a sacrifice or attests a martyr. Kvery memorial 
monument, erected by voluntary contributions (as was this 
one), is intended to perpetuate the memory and the heroism 
of those who fell either on the field or in the forum battling 
for the right. Every flower placed on the grave of a dead 
hero, or festooned in wreaths on a monument, as on the one 
before us, testifies to the present and to future generations, 
how we honored the men who fell and the cause for which 
they yielded up their lives. 

In a few short years the last surviving soldier who par- 
ticipated in the great conflict, which we are to-day com- 

(681) 



^682- 

rtiemorating", will have passed with the benedictions of a 
grateful people, to the higher and better life bej'ond. 

As the coming generations of men shall pause, as pause 
they will, before this and other like monuments, the question 
which each for himself will ask, must be: For what did 
these men voluntarily offer themselves up as a sacrifice? 
Was the cause for which they fought and fell, a just cause? 
Did it represent a principle worth fighting for, and if need 
be worth dying for? If the answer which comes shall be 
such as the truthful historian must chronicle, when the pas- 
sions and mad acts which made the great rebellion possible 
shall have been softened or forgotten, the answer must be, 
*'that they did not die in vain." The answer must be 
*'that in their triumph the God-given right of every human 
soul to life and liberty was aJSirmed, and the unit}- and power 
and glory of the republic confirmed." 



When the rebel armies surrendered, not all which might 
have been, nor all that ought to have been demanded, as 
security for the future, was ever serioush' discussed. As 
there was no thought of exacting any pecuniar}- compensa- 
tion for our sufferings and sacrifice, there ought to have 
been prescribed such terms of surrender as would have made 
another causeless rebellion in the future practicall}' impossi- 
ble. I said then, and say now, that our stipulations for their 
surrender ought to have been made clear and strong and been 
engrafted into our national Constitution, because if made 
part of our national Constitution, they could not be unjust, 
as the conditions thus prescribed would of necessity operate 
on the North and on the South alike. But, in our desire for 
peace, in our anxiet}^ for the return of our erring brothers to 
the old mansion, we did not make the terms of surrender nor 
the stipulations as to the future as clear nor as far-reaching 
as was the duty of practical statesmen. 

The terms of surrender were in fact, as all will remem- 
ber, so ambiguous and shadow}- that manj- of our most emi- 
nent and trusted statesmen denounced the terms, "as a sur- 
render on our part to the enemy." 

That we ought to have made the terms of surrender 



— 683 — 

broad and liberal, and as free from malice, and as charitable as 
they were, all concede; but we oug-ht to have made the terms 
cover questions which all thoug-htful men knew must soon 
confront us, and which are now confronting- us. 

This amiable weakness and childlike trustfulness, how- 
ever, is not unnatural nor confined to this g-eneration. In 
1812 we went to war with Great Britain on a question known 
as the "rig-ht of search." After we had practically defeated 
the British on both the sea and land, we appointed commis- 
sioners to make a treaty of peace. As our distinguished 
commissioners met the British officials day after day, and 
looked into each other's faces, they not only did not discuss 
the question which had caused the war, but when the treaty 
was signed not a sing-le stipulation or word could be found in 
it about the " rig"ht of search." 

We did better at the close of our g-reat rebellion, than 
the peace commissioners whom we sent to Great Britain in 
1814. We knew that slavery was the cause of the war, and 
all intelligent, honest men frankly said, "As slavery has 
been the cause of the war, slavery must die," and it did die. 
The Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, and 
the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, made it impossi- 
ble forever thereafter, for a slave to breathe on any spot of 
God's green earth, beneath the radiant folds of our flag of 
stripes and stars. 

But we passed over and did not provide for the settlement 
of important questions which were then confronting us, and 
which are to-day confronting us, questions which have 
menaced our peace and unity more than once, and which will 
continue to menace it until they are honorably adjusted by 
the concurrent non-partisan action of all sections and all 
parties. If the questions to which I refer are not met and 
satisfactorily adjusted by an amendment to our national 
Constitution, substantially as I suggested in an address 
before the Ohio Society of New York, a conflict is certain to 
overtake us, which will culminate in a civil war more disas- 
trous than the war of the rebellion, because it v/ill be a parti- 
san instead of a sectional war. 

This partisan war, I fear, will grow out of partisan con- 
flicts incident to the mode and manner of nominating and 



— GS4 — 

electing- our Presidents, and Senators and Representatives in 
Congress, unless we provide against it by such amendments 
to our national Constitution as shall make such conflifcts 
impossible. 

Letter from Chairmaa of the Committee, Bishop B. "W. Arnett. 
The reader of this volume will learn, that both before and after the war of the rei 
bellion, Mr. Ashley spoke as one of God's own interpreters, and made plain our duty 
as a nation. Stern and earnest in his denunciations of the great^crime of slavery, yet 
with patience and tenderness he showed us the Divine in humanity, and spoke with 
the firmness and forbearance of one who dwelt in the courts of the Lord. Just and 
generous, a clear and independent thinker, he soug'ht to plant the seed of thought in 
others rather than publish and claim them for himself. He never had any of that 
narrow selfishness which files a "caveat" on every thought that came to him. Search 
the records, and nowhere, b^- speech or pen, can a word be found from him claiming 
special or exclusive credit for introducing his bill for the abolition of slavery in thq 
District of Columbia, nor for having introduced the first proposition for amending the 
national Constitution prohibiting slavery in the United States, and by his tireless and 
prudent labors, securing its passage by Congress, in the words of the Thirteenth 
Amendment. He left that task to his contemporaries and to the future historian. 
Charles Sumner, Chief Justice Chase, James G. Blaine and other men of eminence 
have publicly recognized and testified to his ability and successful parliamentary 
work for the abolition of slavery. In publishing this "souvenir," the negro has built 
him a fitting monument ; but not out of the stones cast at him in the dark days of 
slavery by the enemies of our race, but a monument which contains some of his best 
and most effective appeals for our liberation and enfranchisement. When compiling 
this volume, we were not without hope, that in this form Mr. Ashley's speeches and 
orations may prove to be for him a more enduring monument than marble or granite. 

B. W. Arnett. 



MAUMEE VALLEY PIONEER ASSOCIATION CELE- 
BRATION. 



Address of Governor Ashley to the Men and Women 
Who Came Early to this Part of Ohio. 



FROM THE TOLEDO BLADE. 



Liberty Center, O., Aug-. 19. — At the reunion of the 
Maumee Pioneer Association in Young-'s g"rove, this afternoon, 
after the election of officers, mention of which was made in 
3'esterda3''s Blade, Chairman Young- introduced the speaker 
of the day, Hon. J. M. Ashley, of Toledo. Gov. Ashley de- 
livered the following address, which was listened to with 
g-reat interest and appreciation by the larg-e g-athering- of 
pioneers: 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the So- 
ciety: When honored by your unexpected invitation to ad- 
dress your society to-daj*, I accepted with pleasure. 

Of course, you know, as I do, that the invitation did not 
come to me because I was a pioneer, or the son of a pioneer. 

I came into the Maumee Valley long- after the pioneers, 
whose deeds you annually meet to commemorate, had passed 
to another, and let us hope, a more peaceful life, after having- 
laid broad and deep the foundation of our present substantial 
homes of peace and plent}-. 

I assume, therefore, that your invitation came to me by 
the partiality of old friends, who again wanted to see and 
hear me. 

The desire on my part to see and enjoy the day with 3'ou, 
is evidenced by my presence. 

I reg-ret that I have not had time to prepare a paper* 

(685) 



— 686 — 

suitable for the occasion, and worthy of preservation by your 
society, but I could not do as I wished, and must ask your in- 
dulgence during- the short time I shall detain you. 

The observations I am about to make must be such as 
shall suggest themselves while I am on my feet. 

I see 3'ou have with you here to-day that modern wonder, 
the ubiquitous newspaper reporter, so if I say anything worth 
recording you may be certain he will faithfully record it for 
his paper. If, peradventure, I should make a mistake in 
word, or a slip in speech, let us hope that like "Uncle To- 
by's" recording angel, he will drop a tear on that part of his 
report, and blot it out. 

ISIr. President, there are pioneers who conceive, and plan 
and project, and there are pioneers who organize and com- 
mand and execute. 

The first we call "theoretical" pioneers, the second 
" practical " pioneers. 

In temperament and activitj-, I may be properly be classed 
with both the pioneers who " project" and the pioneers who 
"execute." 

Without a knowledge that other men in other lands had 
conceived substantially the same idea, I had, before attaining 
my majority, thought out for myself and affirmed, " that la- 
bor was equitably entitled to a fair proportion of the wealth 
which it created." Naturally enough, if this proposition be 
admitted, it follows of necessit}-, that the laborer must first 
own himself before he can own and hold any part of the prop- 
erty which his toil has produced. 

Having thus early adopted and publicl}' affirmed this 
pioneer proposition, I entered with vigor and earnestness up- 
on a crusade against the right of any man to own or hold an- 
other as a slave; which crusade ended on my part only with 
the abolition of slavery in the nation, and the adoption of 
the Thirteenth Amendment to our national Constitution, pro- 
hibiting that crime forever. 

My oflicial connection with that sublime act of justice 
has secured for me a fitting place in history, and, with my 
record on that question, I know every friend of freedom 
IS content. 

After the overthrow of slavery and the adoption of the 



— 687 — 

Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to our 
national Constitution, I entered upon another pioneer cru- 
sade, or campaig-n of reform, one which seeks to secure 
to the qualified electors of the nation the rig-ht to nominate 
and elect the President of the United States, and Senators 
and Representatives in Congress by a direct vote of the peo- 
ple by ballot, and to substitute for our present wag-e-systeni 
a plan of co-operation with capital and profit-sharing- for la- 
bor, which, if adopted and practically administered, will se- 
cure to the toiler in all departments of human industry a just 
and fair proportion of the wealth which labor creates. 

If some such plan as I propose had been applied in their 
every-day life, by our early pioneers, their hardships would 
have been lessened, their security for life and property would 
have been g'reater, and their enjoyment corresponding-ly in- 
creased. 

It was only a short time ag-o that we used to carry our 
g-rist to the water-mill of the riverside, and grumble then as 
now at the amount of toll taken by the miller. To-day that 
miller is superseded by one who turns out 3,000 barrels of 
flour every twenty-four hours. And so with our wag-ons; in- 
stead of being- made by the builder in his little shop at the 
cross-roads, they are now made in the g-reat factories at the 
rate of one every thirty minutes. We used to think that no- 
body would ever have ing-enuity enoug"h to make horse-shoe 
nails by machiner)^, but to-day they are furnished to the 
blacksmith far cheaper, smoother and stronger, than he could 
ever make them. Our mothers used to spin and weave our 
blue-jeans for us, but to-day we wear much better and cheaper 
clothes purchased of the tailors and storekeepers. 

What has broug-ht about thk revolution? I answer, a 
monster. The monster of iron, steam and electricity. A mon- 
ster which if not properly controlled will, in time, be powerful 
enoug-h to crush all toilers. I have had some experience in 
practical affairs and I say to you that this monster if ap- 
proached in the rig-ht way can not only be controlled, but can 
be made to serve our ends. It must not be permitted to get the 
upper hand. We must harness this iron monster of steam and 
electricity and teach it to do our bidding. My remedy for the 



— 688 — 

dang-er that besets us is, arbitration and co-operation. [Ap- 
plause.] 



This beautiful Mauniee valley has never been appreciated 
by our people. I have traveled the world over and I say to 
you that we have no reason to be ashamed of our home val- 
ley. Mrs. Sherwood, in a poem soon to be printed, has de- 
scribed much better than I can the beautiful Maumee. I will 
read you the last two stanzas: 

" O river of the purpling* vine, 
O river of the corn and wine, 
O river where the g-olden peach 
Hang's luscious on the pebbled beach, 
Where g-lide the g-alleys of the seas 
In laug-hter-laden arg"osies, 
O river, consecrate to truth 
In proud Ohio's royal 3-outh, 
Thy deeds are dear to poesy, 
Maumee, Maumee. 

" O fair Miami of the lo.kes, 
For thee, majestic music wakes. 
The splendor of thy wide estate, 
To liberty is consecrate; 
To kindlier creeds and statelier laws, 
To manlier deeds and holier cause; 
From primal man's barbaric state, 
To truth transfigured and elate; 
To human freedom's high decree, 
Maumee, Maumee." 

[Applause.] 



Mr. President: As I look back and see moving- westward 
the great historic human panorama of the ag-es, beg-inning- 
with Columbus on the sea, and continuing- on this continent 
for four hundred 3-ears, I am lost in wonder and admiration. 



— 689 — 

t 

This triumphal movement of the human race, on the sea 
and on the land, from the discovery of America by Columbus 
to this hour, has had no parallel in human histor3\ 

You are all familiar with the drama of the early discov- 
erers of America, as on their ships they scanned for months 
with anxious g-aze the sea and sky, while plowing" the un- 
known ocean; and you are still more familiar with the drama 
of the early explorers of this continent, as with covered 
wag-ons and Indian canoes, they pioneered their way, by 
river and lake, through unbroken forests and over formidable 
mountains, encountering- on every hand suffering, privation 
and death. 

The exodus of the children of Israel out of the land of 
Egypt, under the masterly leadership of Moses, has for cen- 
turies been held up to mankind as a lesson and a warning, 
and from the time of that marvelous deliverance has been the 
theme of poets and prophets, and yet the exodus of the chil- 
dren of men, under Columbus, out of their European land of 
bondage to this continent, representing as it did, all civilized 
races, has transcended in glory and grandeur, and in its far- 
reaching and beneficent results to the human race, the exodus 
of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. [Applause.] 
The spirit which moved and directed Columbus was im- 
planted in the breasts' of all our early ocean and continental 
pioneers. 

From Massachusetts Bay to the capes of Florida, we first 
find the Spanish and Portuguese and the French. After- 
wards the French pushed their way up the St. Lawrence 
through Canada, and across the lakes up the Miami of Lake 
Erie; over the classic ground on which we stand to-day, down 
the Wabash and Ohio, to the Mississippi and the Gulf. 

Then came the sturdy English stock, to stick and stay. 
They came from New England and New York to Ohio and 
the Northwest, and following close after them came the great 
exploring expeditions of Lewis and Clark, which crossed the 
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in 1802-3. 

Prior to this, the advanced guard of Scotch-Irish from 
Pennsylvania had followed the Monongahela and descended 
the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. 
44 



— 690 — 

And the pioneer? from Maryland and Virg-inia had f oug-ht 
their way throug-h mountains, to Kentucky and Tennessee, 
and possessed and held that country. 

Thousands of caravans of covered wag-ons, with women 
and children, spread over a territory on a line which reached 
north and south four hundred miles or more, and moving, as 
I see them, like the waves of the ocean, substantially abreast, 
crossed the Alleghenies, descended rivers and penetrated un- 
broken forests, meeting danger and death, as often, if not 
oftener, than did the early pioneers of the ocean. 

The faith and fortitude, the courage and endurance of 
the men and women who pioneered their way across the con- 
tinent, equaled, if it did not eclipse, that of the earl}- ocean 
pioneers. [Applause.] 

The same impelling motive animated both. 
The overland pioneers could nowhere plant their flags in 
safety, nor rest in peace, until they had silenced in death the 
wild-man's terrific 3'ell. 

More caravans were wiped out in blood by the red man 
than were lost by the early ocean pioneers at sea, and yet 
great armies on both the land and sea came on and on, never 
hesitating, never faltering. 

The pluck and heroism of the ocean and continental 
pioneers, presents a sublime spectacle,' the contemplation of 
which, fills ever)" manl}^ heart with patriotic emotions. 

There were thousands of men at the head of west-bound 
expeditions, as brave and dauntless and hopeful as Columbus; 
men who could command and successful!}' fight great battles; 
men whose steady advance could not be staj-cd b}- danger, 
nor their purpose defeated by obstacles, however formidable. 
Fortunate are we to be the descendants of such a sturdy, 
heroic race of men, and to be the possessors of the priceless 
political and material inheritance which they created and be- 
queathed. [Applause.] 

You have all read the stor}' of Columbus, and many of 
j-ou have read more than one account, as described b}" poets 
and historians, of the manner in which he handled and di- 
rected the terrified and half-mutinous olficers and men on his 
ships, that long, dark night before he sighted land in the 
new world. 



— 691 — 

Many an overland pioneer with his convoy of prairie 
schooners had a like experience, and acquitted himself as g-al- 
lantl}'. [Applause.] 

As his trusted flag-ship plowed the stormy ocean, that 
long- dark night, Columbus, pale and worn, paced her sea- 
washed deck with faith unshaken; always answering- his re- 
bellious oJBficers and crew, when they demanded that he turn 
back, with the single but firm command, " Sail on. Sail on. 
Sail on. And on." 

At last, in the early gray of the morning his eye caught 
sight of a speck, and when, with the aid of his glass, he as- 
sured himself that it was land he saw, his great heart and 
pent-up spirit broke forth in joyous triumph, with the only 
words his lips could utter, "Alight. Alight. Alight. A 
light." And you and I know, that to us as Americans, out of 
that light, there grew a star-lit flag unfurled. To the human 
race, " It grew to be, Time's burst of dawn." [Applause.] 



ADDRESS 

OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY 



BEFORE THE "OHIO SOCIETV OF NEW YORK,' 



At its Fifth Annuai, Banquet, Wednesday Evening, 
February 19, 1890. 



New York, February- 20, 1890. 
My Dear Governor Ashley : 

At the banquet of the Ohio Society of New York last 
evening-, the President of the Society was, by unanimous 
vote, directed to ask you to furnish to the Society for publi- 
cation a copy of your admirable paper on the passage throug-h 
the House of Representatives of the United States of the 
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In performance 
of this duty, I beg- leave to present to you their request. 

Let me add, personally, that this formal expression was 
supplemented individually by every one of those present with 
whom it was my fortune to converse. I am sure that I speak 
for all present in expressing- my individual appreciation of 
the greatness and historic value of that action of which you 
were so largeh^ the inspiration, and in which you were the 
foremost actor. 

Yours, very truly. 

Wager Swayne. 
Hon. J. ]M. Ashley. 

(692) 



— 693 — 



Kew Yokk, February 21, 1890. 
Gen. 'Wager Swayne, 

President Ohio Society of New York 
195 Broadway. 
My Dear Sir : 

Herewith please find copy of my address as delivered be- 
fore your Society, at the fifth annual banquet, on the 19th 
inst. 

It g-ives me pleasure to comply with a request in which 
is conveyed so complimentary an approval by the Society and 
yourself of the address. 

I only reg-ret that I did not have time to speak more in 
detail of the personality of the immortal twenty-four who 
voted with us, and thus made possible the passage of the 
Thirteenth Amendment. 

Truly yours, 

J. M. Ashley. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen oe the Ohio Society 
OP New York : The official acts of the g-reat actors in the 
conflict of civilization v/ith the barbarism of slavery, are 
faithfully recorded in the nation's archives, and open to the 
inspection and compilation of the coming* historian. 

You will not expect me to-night to do more than briefly 
notice some few of these men, with whom it was my g-ood 
fortune to be associated during- the time Congress had under 
consideration the propositions to abolish slavery at the nation- 
al capital and the Thirteenth Amendment. 

When the story of our g-reat anti-slavery conflict shall 
have been written, it will make one of the most ideal chap- 
ters in our matchless history. That chapter will tell the 
coming- g-enerations of men the story of the immortal victory 
achieved by the American people for democratic g-overnment 
and an undivided Union ; a victory whose far-reaching con- 
sequences no man can even now foresee. 

In the fullness of time, to every nation and people great 



— 694 — 

leaders arc born, and some one or more of these earnest lead- 
ers, by the utterance of a simple moral truth in a brief 
couplet or in a single epigrammatic sentence, have often in 
the world's history changed the opinions of thousands. 

Especially true was this of the written appeals and 
public addresses of the great anti-slavery leaders in this 
country for more than a quarter of a century before the re- 
bellion. He was indeed a dull and insensible man who dur- 
ing our anti-slavery crusade did not grow eloquent and be- 
come aggressive when writing or speaking of slavery as the 
great crime of his age and countr}-. To me, as a boy, the 
men who made up this vanguard of anti-slavery leaders al- 
ways appeared to be exceptionally great men, men who 
walked the earth with unfaltering faith and a firm tread, 
with heads erect, so that their prophetic ej-es caught the 
dawn of Freedom's coming morn. They were brave, strong, 
self-reliant men, whose words and acts all testified that their 
o-reat hearts "burned to break the fetters of the world." 
These men had no thought of witnessing during their life- 
time the triumph of the cause which they had so unselfishl}- 
espoused ; they were tireless and invincible, workers. The 
alluring promise of success nowhere held out to them hope 
of political reward. To an unpopular cause they gave all 
they had of time, money and brains, not doubting that those 
who should come after them would be able to command and 
so to direct the moral forces of the nation as ultimately to 
enact justice into law by "proclaiming liberty throughout 
all the land to all the inhabitants thereof." Under this ban- 
ner they went forth, conquering and to conquer, and in all 
their impassioned appeals they "sounded forth the bugle 
that never called retreat." 

To have voluntarily enlisted and fought with this liber- 
atino- army until our starry banner was planted in triumph 
on the last citadel of American slavery, is an honor of which 
the humblest citizen and his children may justly be proud, an 
honor which will grow brighter in all the coming years of 
the republic. 

I was so young when I enlisted in this liberating army 
that I cannot fix the date. 

At the home of a neighbor, a Virginian by birth, and until 



— 695 — 

the close of his manly life a resident of Kentucky, I heard, 
with wondering- emotions, the first song* in which a slave 
was represented as appealing- to his captors for his freedom. 
I was but nine years old, but that song- with -its story 
touched my heart, and, though I never sav/ it in print, I 
never f org-ot it. The verse of this song- that arrested my at- 
tention, and remained fixed in my memory, is as clear to me 
TO-NIGHT as it was more than half a centur}^ a-g"o. 

It was the plaintive appeal of an escaped slave, in simple" 
rhyme, such as slaves often sang- to tunes with which all are 
familiar who have heard the old-fashioned plantation melo- 
dies. 

In that appeal to his captors 

"He showed the stripes his master g-ave, 
The branded scars — the sightless eye, 
The common badg-es of a slave, 
And said he would be free or die." 

I did not know until then that the slave master had the 
rig-ht to whip, brand and maim his slave. It was at the 
home of this venerable anti-slavery man (who made the 
world better for his having- lived in it), that I first learned this 
fact, and it was at his house that I first heard repeated many 
of the fiery utterances of Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky. 
After showing- an appreciation of these anti-slavery senti- 
ments, I was frequently lifted on a chair or table by our old 
anti-slavery neig-hbor and taug-ht to declaim from the 
speeches of Cassius M. Clay and others. I was so fascinated 
by a parag-raph from a speech made by Governor McDowell, 
of Virg-inia, that ifalways gave me pleasure to speak it, as 
I often did, with such earnestness as to secure me as honest 
applause in that quiet anti-slavery household as any I ever 
commanded on the platform in after years. 

I never forg-ot that appeal of Governor McDowell, and 
often used it after I g-rew to manhood, and quoted it in one 
of my early speeches in Cong-ress, as I again quote it here : 

"You may place the slave where 3-0U please, j'ou may 
dry up to jour uttermost the fountain of his feelings, the 



— 696 — 

spring's of his thought, 3'ou may close upon his mind every 
avenue to knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial night, 
you ma}' yoke him to labor as an ox — which liveth only to 
work, and worketh only to live ; you may put him under any 
process which without destroying his value as a slave, will 
debase and crush him as a rational being — you may do all 
this ; and yet, the idea that he was born free will survive it 
all. It is allied to his hope of immortality — it is the eternal 
part of his nature which oppression cannot reach. It is a 
torch lit up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never 
meant to be extinguished by the hand of man." 

I speak of these seemingly unimportant incidents of my 
boyhood to confirm what I said in opening, touching the in- 
fluence which one brave, truthful man can exercise over thou- 
sands, and to illustrate the tremendous power a single thought 
may often have over the acts and lives of reader and hearer. 

From m}^ ninth to my thirteenth year my father was 
preaching on a circuit in the border counties of Kentucky 
and West Virginia, and afterwards in Southeastern Ohio. 
During our residence in Kentucky and West Virginia I did 
not know a single abolitionist except the family which I have 
described, and not until I v/as in my seventeenth year did I 
meet and become acquainted with Cassius M. Clay and John 
G. Fee. Some time afterwards I met James G. Burne}^ who 
became the abolition candidate for President in 1844. 

The leaders of the church to which my father belonged, 
and, indeed, the leaders in all Southern churches in those 
days, publicly affirmed "that slavery per se could exist 
without sin," a doctrine which I regarded then, as I do now, 
as a perversion of the teachings of Christ. It has alwaj^s 
been a source of satisfaction to me that my mother, who was 
a conservative woman, never gave in her adhesion to this 
rascally defense of "the sum of villainies." 

At that time, in all the border counties of Kentucky, 
slavery existed in a milder form than in any other part of the 
Southwest, and the slave owners whom I knew were much 
better men than one would in this day believe possible under 
any slave system. 

And 3-et the system in its practical working was so mon- 
strous that before I had grown to manhood I had publicly 
pronounced against it, and, as many before me know, I 



— 697- 

foug"ht it with an energy which never tired, and a faith 
which never faltered. 

"While entertaining- the anti-slavery opinions of Jefferson ^ 
and the men of 1776, and everywhere proclaiming- them 
without concealment, I was elected to Congress in 1858, when 
in my thirty-fourth year, and for the first time took my seat 
in a deliberative bod}^ in the Thirty-sixth Congress, during 
the admi-nistration of Mr. Buchanan. 

At that time the pro-slavery conspirators were preparing 
for armed rebellion, and for the desperate attempt, which 
they soon made, to establish a slave empire on the ruins of 
the republic. 

There I met many anti-slavery leaders of age and expe- 
rience, to whose ranks I was eagerly welcomed. 

I entered upon the straight and narrow path that led to 

victory. I faltered but once. That was on the vote on the 

Crittenden Resolution in July, 1861. The vote was 117 yeas ; 

noes, 2 — Mr. Potter of "Wisconsin and Mr. Riddle of Ohio 

■ voting No. 

I had been appealed to by almost every public man of my 
acquaintance in Washington and by my personal and political 
friends to vote for the resolution, and not assume the respon- 
sibility of separating myself at such a time and on so im- 
portant a matter from my party. When my name was called 
I shook my head, as was then the custom ; my name was 
called the second time, and I again shook my head, the blush 
of shame tingling my face, as it has every time I have 
thought of that act or looked at the record since and read, 
" Not voting, J. M. Ashley." I never felt the sense of shame 
so keenly before nor siiice ; and turning to Mr. Corwin, my 
venerable colleague, as the vote was announced, I said, with 
emotion, "Governor, that is the most cowardly act of my 
life, and no power on earth shall again make me repeat it." 
"Why, General," he exclaimed, with evident warmth, "I 
VOTED FOR IT." I saw that I had, in the excitement of the 
moment, offended him, and I made haste to assure him that 
I intended nothing of the sort, as all would have done who 
had offended so lovable, companionable and just a man as 
Governor Corwin. I promptly extended my hand and said, 
"Yes, Governor, but you do not see things as I do." I need 



— 698 — 

hardly add tliat after this I did not ag-ain refuse to vote on any 
question, nor did I, during- my entire service, g-ive a single 
vote that to-nig-ht I would chang-e. 

Great occasions produce great men. The State of Ohio 
furnished her full quota for the crisis of 1861 : 

Joshua R. Giddings, the leader of the "old guard, one 
blast upon whose bugle horn was worth a thousand men." 

Salmon P. Chase, Senator, Governor, Cabinet- Minister 
and Chief Justice, who ranked next to Lincoln in leadership. 

Thomas Ewing, profound statesman, great lawyer, and 
Cabinet Minister under General Harrison in 1841. 

Edwin M. Stanton, the great War Secretary, earnest, 
fearless, tireless. 

Judge McLean, the ideal Judge, representing on the 
bench the coming civilization, the writer of the dissenting 
opinion in the Dred Scott case. 

Judge Swayne, judicial, conscientious, a great worker 
and the early friend and confidant of Lincoln. 

Benjamin F. Wade, bluff, positive, ready to meet the 
enemy in the field or forum. 

John Sherman, keen, politic, far-sighted and successful. 

In the House — Thomas Corwin, Delano, Bingham, Law- 
rence, Hutchins, Spaulding, Schellaberger, Schenck, Hayes 
and Garfield. 

Our War Governors, Dennison, Todd and Brough, un- 
equaled as organizers and in administrative power. 

On the Democratic side there were Senator Thurman 
and Representatives Vallandigham, Pendleton, Cox and 
Morgan, with many able men in private life, who were active 
in demanding our "authority and precedents" for all we 
proposed, and much that we did for which we had no " prec- 
edent.".! 

In the army Ohio eclipsed the world. That wonderful 
triumvirate of commanders, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, 
were without models and without equals. And then we had 
McPherson, Garfield, Steedman, Swayne, Cox and Buckland, 
and hundreds besides, who, on the field and in the forum, 
made the name of Ohio everywhere sjmom-mous with great 
deeds and heroic acts. 



— 699 — 

In such a cause, with such leaders, success was foreor- 
dained. 

When the ofdcial records of Congress during- the adminis- 
tration of Mr. Buchanan are examined by the historian of 
the future, and the so-called compromise proposition of the 
Union-saving committee of thirty-three (of which Charles 
Francis Adams of Massachusetts was chairman) is compared* 
with the Thirteenth Amendment, which three 3-ears later 
became part of our national Constitution, it will be difficult 
for him to find reasons for the extraordinary revolution in 
public opinion which these two proposed amendments to our 
national Constitution present. And here I wish I could walk 
backward with averted gaze, and with the broad mantle of 
charity cover the political nakedness of our own beloved 
State, which, by the vote of its Legislature, committed. the 
indefensible folly of ratifying the pro-slavery amendment 
proposed by the committee of thirty-three, and thus officially 
consented to its becoming part of our national Constitution. 

To me the propositions of the so-called "Peace Con- 
gress, over which ex-President John Tyler, of Virginia, pre- 
sided, were preposterous and offensive, and the "pledge" of 
the "Crittenden Resolution" a delusion and a snare, cun- 
ningly designed to paralyze and manacle us. 

Every sane man who to-day reads the numerous proposed 
constitutional amendments with which Congress at that time 
was deluged, will recognize the fact that the}^ were all stu- 
diously and deliberately prepared for the avowed purpose of 
protecting slavery by new and more exacting guarantees. 

This celebrated Compromise Committee of thirty-three 
reported and recommended an amendment which practically 
made slavery perpetual. 

It was in these words : 

" ARTIC1.E 12th. No amendments shall be made to the 
Constitution which shall authorize or give Congress the 
power to abolish or interfere within any State with the do- 
mestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to 
labor or service by the laws of such State." 

Imagine, if you can, what the other propositions were, 
if THIS was the most favorable which the Compromise Com- 
mittee of thirty-three could obtain for us. 



— 700 — 

Two days before Mr. Lincoln's inaug"uration, this abase- 
ment was made to the slave barons b}' a two-thirds vote of 
both Houses of the Congress of the United States, and the 
act was approved b}" President Buchanan. 

I do not believe a more shameless exhibition on the part 
of a civilized people can be found in history. 

Prior to this proposed surrender to the slave barons, a 
number of the Southern States had passed ordinances of se- 
cession, and defiantl}' organized a government, with Jefferson 
Davis as President. 

That such humiliating concessions were as defenseless 
then as the}^ would be now, and as offensive to the civiliza- 
tion of the nineteenth centur3% will not be questioned. 

The nation had not then learned that the strength of a 
statesman lies in his fidelity to justice — not in his concessions 
to injustice. 

Our official records, for nearly half a century before the 
Rebellion, presented one unbroken series of fruitless compro- 
mises with the slave barons, until in their pride and arro- 
gance they believed themselves able to direct successfully any 
revolution and ride with safety any storm. 

At last we came to know that all our concessions were 
regarded by them as irrevocable ; that nothing but new con- 
cessions would be accepted by them, and that they would 
only consent to remain in the Union on the express condition 
that we should bind ourselves for all time to record their pro- 
slavery decrees in every department of the national and State 
governments. 

The rebels witnessed our efforts at an adjustment with 
shouts of derision and defiance, and said, "Now we have 
the Yankees on a down grade, and on the run." 

They learned afterwards to their sorrow that, however 
true this might have been under the leadership of Buchanan, 
it was no longer true under the leadership of Lincoln. Yet, 
alas ! it is true, that immediatel}^ after the election of Mr. 
Lincoln and before his inauguarion, many men who had 
been active anti-slaver}' men quailed before the approaching 
storm, which their own brave appeals for liberty had aided 
in producing. 

They comprehended what civil war, with all its attend- 



— 701 — 

ant horrors, meant to a civilized people, and shrank from its 
terrible consequences, and as the acts of their representatives 
proved, they were willing- to do everything- in their power to 
avoid it. These timid anti-slavery men were representatives 
of the wealth, the manufacturing- industry, the commerce, 
the peaceful farm-life of the North and West, and the best 
civilization of the ag-e. They were for peace ; they believed 
in an appeal to the conscience and heart of the nation, at the 
ballot-box, and in loyally submitting- to the verdict when 
rendered. They never would have appealed from the ballot- 
box to the cartridg-e-box. The g-reat heart of the North was 
still, and for a time held its breath, while re-echoing- with 
hope the sentiment of their beloved Quaker Poet, when, just 
before the Rebellion, he uttered this sublime prayer : 

*' Perish with him the thoug-ht, 
Th^t seeks, through evil, g-ood ; 
Long- live the g-enerous purpose 
Unstained by human blood." 

While I did not adopt, without qualification, the mem- 
orable utterances of Daniel O'Connell, the g-reat Irish leader, 
when he declared "that no revolution was worth the shed- 
ding- of one drop of human blood," I everywhere proclaimed 
"that in this country, so long- as the press was free and 
speech was free, and the ballot was free, no revolution was 
worth the shedding- of one drop of human blood." 

The speeches, appeals and acts of the leaders of the two 
sections were entirely characteristic. 

The Southern leaders, instead of quailing- before the 
storm which their passionate appeals had raised, defiantly 
mounted and rode the storm, fit types of the barbarism which 
they championed. 

When the North, with the loyal men of the border States, 
fully comprehended the fact that there could be no peace nor 
Union unless the Rebellion was suppressed by force, and 
slaver}^, which made the Rebellion possible, was abolished, 
they buckled on their armor and went forth to conquer. 

During- the first session of Congress, after Mr. Lincoln 



— 702 — 

became President, I introduced a bill for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia. It contained but one 
short section, and simply enacted "that slaver}', or involun- 
tary servitude, should cease in the District of Columbia from 
and after the passag^e of this act." I sent it to the Commit- 
tee on the District of Columbia, of which I was a member, 
and Roscoe Conkling, of New York, was chairman. "sVlien 
the bill was read in the District Committee, it was by com- 
mon consent referred to me, as a sub-committee of one. The 
excitement and indig^nation which that bill caused in the 
District Committee, and the undisg-uised disgust entertained 
for me personally by the pro-slavery members of the commit- 
tee, would be amusing* now, but it was a matter of serious 
moment then. 

I felt certain that a majorit}^ of that committee did not 
intend to let me report that bill or an}- other of like character 
to the House for a vote. As soon as it was known that I had 
the matter in charge, by direction of the District Committee 
Mr. Chase sent for me, and discussed the proposition which 
I had introduced, and sug-gested instead, a bill which should 
compensate the "loyal slave owners" by paj-ing" them a 
"ransom," which should not exceed three hundred dollars a 
head for each slave, and enforced his arg-ument by adding" 
that Mr. Lincoln was seriously considering- the practica- 
bility of compensating- the border States if they would take 
the initiative and emancipate their slaves, and he added, "I 
want you to see the President, and if possible prepare a bill 
which will command the necessary votes of both Houses of 
Congfress and the active support of the Administration." 

I saw the President next day and went over the g^round 
with him, substantially as I had with Mr. Chase, and finally 
agreed that I would ask for the appointment of a Senator en 
the part of the Senate District Committee to unite with mc 
to frame a bill, which the Senate and House committees 
would report favorably, and which should have the President's 
approval, and the support of as many of the Resresentatives 
from the border States as we could induce to vote to "initiate 
emancipation," as Mr. Lincoln expressed it. 

Fortunately for the success of the compensation policy, 
the Senate District Committee desig-nated as that sub-com- 



— 703— 

rtiittee-maii, Lot M. Morrell, of Maine, to confer with me and 
prepare such a bill as Mr. Lincoln and Chase had outlined. 

After several meetings a bill was finally ag-reed upon 
which appropriated one million dollars to pay loyal owners 
for their slaves at a price not to exceed $300 each. 

This bill had the approval of Mr. Lincoln and Chase and 
other anti-slavery leaders, before it was submitted to the 
District Committees for their action and recommendation to 
each House of Congfress. 

Personally, I did not ag-ree with Mr. Lincoln in his 
border State policy, but was unwilling- to set up my judg-- 
ment ag-ainst his, especially when he was supported by such 
men as Chase, Fessenden, Trumbull, and a larg-e majority of 
Union men in both Houses of Cong-ress. I therefore 3aelded 
my private opinions on a matter of policy, for reasons which 
I then g-ave and will presently quote, and because I was 
determined that that Cong-ress should not adjourn until 
slaver}^ had been abolished at the national capital. 

I did not want to appropriate a million of dollars from 
the national Treasury to pay the slave owners of the District 
of Columbia for their slaves, because I was opposed to offi- 
cially recog-nizing- property in man, and for the additional 
reason that I was confident that before the close of the war 
slavery would be abolished without compensation. And I 
believed then, and believe now, that at least two-thirds of all 
the so-called "loyal slave owners " in the District of Columbia 
who applied for and accepted compensation for their slaves, 
would at that time have welcomed Jefferson Davis and his 
g-overnment in Washing-ton with every demonstration of ^oj. 
On the 12th of March, 1862, by direction of the Com- 
mittee for the District of Columbia, I reported the bill to the 
House as it had been ag-reed upon by Mr. Morrell and my- 
self, with the approval of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Chase and 
others. 

On the 11th of April, 1862, the bill, as amended by the 
Senate, passed the House by a vote of 92 for to 38 ag-ainst, 
and at once received the sig-nature of the President. 

In the speech which I delivered that day I said: " I do 
not believe that Cong-ress has any more power to make a 
slave than to make a king-," and added, " If then there is, 



— 704 — 

as I claim, no power in Congress to reduce any man or race 
to slavery, it certainly will not be claimed that Congress has 
power to leg-alize such regulations as exist to-day touching- 
persons held as slaves in this District by re-enacting the slave 
laws of Maryland, and thus do by indirection what no sane 
man claims authority to do directly. . . . If I must tax the loyal 
people of the nation a million of dollars before the slaves at 
the national capital can be ransomed I will do it. I will 
make a bridge of gold over which they may pass to freedom 
on the anniversary of the fall of Sumter, if it cannot be more 
justly accomplished." 

As the nation had been guilty of riveting the chains of 
all the slaves in the District, and Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Chase, 
and so large a majority of the friends of the Union desired 
the passage of this act, believing that it would aid them in 
holding the border Sxave States, I yielded my own opinions, 
and voted to pay the loyal owners of the District for their 
slaves and thus aided Mr. Lincoln in initiating emancipation 
by compensation. But events were stronger than men or 
measures, and this was the first and last of compensation. 

On the 14th of December, 1863, I introduced a proposition 
to amend the Constitution, abolishing slavery in all the 
States and Territories of the nation, which, on my motion, 
was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. In a speech 
during that session of Congress urging the submission of such 
an amendment, I said: "I advocated from the first the 
emancipation of all slaves, because I believed ideas more 
formidable than armies, justice more powerful than prejudice, 
and truth a weapon mightier than the sword." 

The fall of Vicksburg and the great victor}^ of Gettys- 
burg had solidified the Union men North and South, and 
assured them of ultimate success. 

The crushing defeat of Hood at Nashville by Thomas, 
the investment of Richmond by Grant, and Sherman's trium- 
phant march from the mountains to the sea, was an announce- 
ment to the world that all armed opposition to the govern- 
ment was approaching its end. 

It now only remained, that the statesmen who had 
provided for and organized our great armies should crown 
their matchless victories with unfading glory, by engrafting 



— 705 — 

into our national Constitution a provision which should make 
peace and union inseparable by removing- forever the cause of 
the war, and making- slavery everywhere impossible beneath 
the flag- of the republic. 

On the 15th of June, 1864, the House voted on the pro- 
posed constitutional amendment, and it was defeated by a 
vote of 94 for it and 64 ag-ainst it. I thereupon chang-ed my 
vote before the announcement was made, as I had the right 
to do under the rules, and my vote was recorded with the 
opposition in order that I mig-ht enter a motion for recon- 
sideration. 

In the Globe, as the vote stands recorded, it is 93 for to 
65 ag-ainst. This vote disappointed, but it did not discourag-e 
me. Had every member been present and voted, it would 
have required 122 votes to pass the amendment, whereas we 
could muster but 94, or 28 less than required. 

As I now look back, and review with calmer emotions 
than I did then the g-reat battle we were fig-hting-, I compre- 
hend more fully the power of that simple and sublime faith 
which inspired all the living- heroes in that historic hour. 

In his "Twenty Years of Congress" Mr. Blaine has 
given me credit, in full measure, for introducing and pressing 
the first proposition made in the House of Representatives 
for the abolition of slavery in the United States by an amend- 
ment of the national Constitution, and for effective parlia- 
mentary work in securing its passage. Personally, I never 
regarded the work which I then did as entitling me to special 
recognition. It was to me a duty, and because I so felt, I 
have never publicly written or spoken about my connection 
with it, and should not have done so before you to-night but 
for the pressing invitation of our President, who acts as if 
he regarded it as part of his duty, while charged with the 
care of this Society, to bring every modest Ohio man to the 
front. 

There was at that time so many noble and unselfish men 
in the House of Representatives entitled to recognition for 
effective work in behalf of the Thirteenth Amendment, that 
I have preferred not to single out any one member as entitled 
to more credit than another. I certainly did not expect any 
45 



— 706 — 

such complimentary recog-nition as Mr. Blaine lias so gener- 
ously given me. 

Educated in the political school of Jefferson, I was abso- 
lutely amazed at the solid Democratic vote ag-ainst the amend- 
ment on the 15th of June. To me it looked as if the g-olden 
hour had come, when the Democratic part}^ could, without 
apolog"}", and without regret, emancipate itself from the fatal 
dogmas of Calhoun, and reaffirm the doctrines of Jefferson. 
It had alwa3's seemed to me that the great men in the Demo- 
cratic party had shown a broader spirit in favor of human 
liberty than their political opponents, and until the domina- 
tion of Mr. Calhoun and his States-rights disciples, this was 
undoubtedly true. On the death of General Harrison in 
1841, and after John Tyler became the acting President, I 
date the organized conspiracy of the slave barons, which 
culminated in the Rebellion. 

A man of singleness of purpose and disinterestedness, 
possesses a wonderful power, which is soon recognized by his 
associates in the Congress of the United States. The lead- 
ing men in both Senate and House, and in nearl}- all the exec- 
utive departments, knew that my only ambition was to 
accomplish the task v/ith which (as Mr. Blaine expresses it) 
I was "by common consent, specially charged." The only 
reward I expected, and the only reward I ever had, or shall 
ever have, is the satisfaction of knowing that I did my whole 
duty, nothing more, nothing less. I at once gave special 
care to the study of the characters and antecedents of thirty- 
six of the members who did not vote for the amendment on 
the 15th of June, and made up my mind that if we could 
force the issue of the Thirteenth Amendment into the pend- 
ing presidential contest, and Mr. Lincoln should be elected 
in November, that the requisite number of liberal Democrats 
and border State Union men who had voted against and 
defeated the amendment in June might be prevailed upon to 
vote with us after Mr. Lincoln had been re-elected on that 
issue. In this faith, and with this hope, I at once began a 
systematic study of the characters of the men whose co- 
operation and votes must be secured as a condition to success. 

During this six months' experience I learned something 
of the tremendous power of the single man when making 



— 707 — 

earnest appeals to his colleagues. One source of ever present 
embarrassment to me was the fact that I had but little expe- 
rience in legislation, and that nearl}^ every one of my col- 
leagues to whom I was addressing myself was my senior in 
years. In this great work I had the earnest support of the 
Administration, the great majority of the Republican party, 
and many earnest men in public and private life. 

On the 28th of June, 1864, Mr. Holman, of Indiana, rose 
in the House, and said " that he desired to know whether 
the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley) who entered the mo- 
tion to reconsider the vote by which the House rejected the 
bill proposing an amendment to the Constitution abolishing 
slavery throughout all the States and Territories of the 
United States, proposed to call that motion up during the 
present session." In reply, I said that I did not propose to 
call that motion up during the present session ; " but as the 
record had been made up, we would go to the country on the 
issue thus presented." And I added: "When the verdict of 
the people shall have been rendered next November, I trust 
this Congress will return determined to engraft that verdict 
into the national Constitution." I thereupon gave notice 
that I would call up the proposition at the earliest possible 
moment after our meeting in December next (see Globe, 
June 28th, 1864). 

Immediately after giving this notice, I went to work to 
secure its passage, and it may not be uninteresting if I out- 
line to you the way I conducted that campaign. 

The question thus presented became one of the leading 
issues of the presidential campaign of 1864. 

The Administration — the Republican party — and many 
men who were not partisans, now gave the measure their 
warm support. 

Knowing that Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and 
Frank P. Blair, of Missouri, would vote for the amendment 
whenever their votes would secure its passage, I went to them 
to learn who of the border-State members were men of broad 
and liberal views, and strong and self-reliant enough to fol- 
low their convictions, even to political death, provided they 
could know that their votes would pass the measure. 

The following is the list of the names of the border- 



— 708 — 

State men, as made up within two weeks after the defeat of 
the amendment, in June, 1864 : James S. Rollins, Henry S. 
Blow, Benjamin F. Loan, ex-Gov. Kin^, S. H. Boyd, Frank 
P. Blair and Joseph W. McClurg- of Missouri ; Green Clay 
Smith, Georg-e H. Yeaman, Brutus J. Clay and Lucius Ander- 
son of Kentucky ; John A. J. Cresswell, Gov. Francis 
Thomas, E. H. Webster and Henry Winter Davis of Mar}*- 
land ; Kellian V. Whaley, Jacob P. Blair and William G. 
Brown of West Virginia, and N. B. Smithers of Delaware. 
Of the 19 thus selected 13 voted for the amendment, and 
marched to their political death. 

After conferring" with Reuben E. Fenton and Augustus 
Frank of New York, I made up the following- list of liberal 
Northern Democrats, whose votes I hoped to secure for the 
amendment : 

Moses F. Odell, Homer A. Nelson, John A. Griswold, 
Anson Herrick, John B. Steele, Charles F. Winfield, William 
Radford and John Ganson, of New York ; S. S. Cox, Warren 
P. Noble, Wells A. Hutchins, John F. McKenney and Fran- 
cis C. LeBlond of Ohio ; Archibald McAllister and Alex. H. 
Coffroth of Penns3'lvania ; James E. English of Connecticut, 
and Aug-ustus C. Baldwin of Michigan. 

Of the 17 Northern Democrats thus selected, eleven 
voted for the amendment, two were absent, and one who had 
promised me to vote for it and prepared a speech in its favor, 
finally voted against. Of the 36 members orig^inallv selected 
as men naturally inclined to favor the amendment, and strong- 
enough to meet and repel the fierce partisan attack which 
were certain to be made upon them, 24 voted for it, two were 
absent, and but ten voted ag-ainst it. 

Every honorable effort was made b}- the Administration 
to secure the passag-e of this amendment. 

At my request Tuesday, January 31, 1865, was the day 
fixed for the vote to be taken on the amendment, 

A faithful record of the final act of the 38th Cong^ress 
on this question will be found on pages 523 to 531 of the 
Congressional Globe. 

The Speaker stated the question, and announced "That 
the g-entleman from Ohio was entitled to the floor,*' which 



— 70*) — 

under the rules g"ave me one hour in which to close the 
debate. 

Never before, and certain I am that never ag"ain, will I 
be seized with so strong" a desire to g-ive utterance to the 
thoug-hts and emotions which throbbed my heart and brain. 
I knew that the hour was at hand when the world would 
witness the complete triumph of a cause, which at the begin- 
ning" of my political life I had not hoped to live long enough 
to see, and that on that day, before our session closed, an act, 
as just as it was merciful to oppressor and oppressed, was to 
be enacted into law, and soon thereafter became a part of our 
national Constitution forever. 

The hour and the occasion was an immortal one in the 
nation's history, and memorable to each actor who voted for 
the amendment. 

Every available foot of space, both in the g-alleries and 
on the floor of the House, was crowded at an early hour, and 
many hundreds could not g-et within hearing-. Never before, 
nor afterwards, did I see so brilliant and disting-uished a 
gathering in that hall, nor one where the feeling was more 
intense. The Judges of the Supreme Court, the members of 
the Cabinet, the Vice-President and Senators, most of the 
foreign Ministers and all the distinguished visitors who 
could secure seats, with their wives, daughters and friends, 
were present to witness the sublimest event in our national 
life. 

You will readily understand that this was an occasion to 
inspire any man of my temperament with a strong desire to 
speak, and yet it was beyond question my duty to yield all 
my time to gentlemen of the opposition, who had promised 
to vote for the amendment, and desired to have recorded in 
the official organ of the House the reasons for the vote which 
they were about to give. 

The first gentleman to whom I yielded was the Hon. 
Archibald McAllister of Pennsylvania, an old-fashioned 
Democrat of the Jackson school. He was not a speaker, and 
the brief "statement," as he called it, which he sent to the 
Clerk's desk to be read for him as he stood on the floor, with 
every eye in that great hall fixed on his tall form, is so charac- 
teristic, and withal expresses so tersely the reasons which 



— 710- 

impelled him and thousands of other loyal and conservative 
men to demand the immediate abolition of slavery, that I 
quote vt'hat he said entire. 

I will read it to you, and repeat what he said, as nearly 
as I can, with the same intonation of voice and manner as he 
read it to me in m}' committee-room that morning", a few 
minutes before the House convened. 

He said "That it was due to his constituents that they 
should know wh}' he changfed his vote, and that he could not 
make a speech, that he was so nervous that he dare not even 
trust himself to read what he had written, and asked me if I 
would jneld him the floor long" enough to allow him to send 
to the Clerk's desk, and have read what he desired to say to 
his constituents." I never was more anxious to yield the 
floor to an}^ man than I was to him, and answered, "Cer- 
tainly, I will be g"lad to jdeld you all the time you ask." He 
then read me this short, and now historic speech, and I said 
to him then, as I say to you now, that it was, under all the 
circumstances, the best and most eloquent speech delivered 
in the House of Representatives in favor of the Thirteenth 
Amendment. This is the speech, and the way he read it to 
me : 

"When this subject was before this House on a former 
occasion, I voted ag^ainst the measure. I have been in favor 
of exhausting all means of conciliation to restore the Union 
as our fathers made it. I am for the whole Union and utterly 
opposed to secession, or dissolution in any shape. The result 
of all the peace missions, and especiall}' that of Mr. Blair, 
has satisjficd me that nothing short of the recognition of 
their independence will satisfy the Southern Confedcrac3\ 
It must therefore be destroyed, and in voting for the present 
measure, I cast my vote against the corner-stone of the 
Southern Confederacy, and declare eternal war against the 
enemies of my countr}-." 

As soon as he had finished reading it, I grasped his hand 
with enthusiasm, and heartily congratulated him, and said, 
" Mr. McAllister, that is a better and more telling speech by 
far than any which has been made for the amendment, and 
I believe that it will be quoted hereafter more than any 
speech made in Congress in its favor." 

When the Clerk of the House finished reading this brief 



— 711 — 

speecfi of this plain, blunt man, it called forth g-eneral ap- 
plause on the floor and in the g-alleries, and when I after- 
wards read it to Mr. Lincoln, Chase and others, they were 
then as pronounced in its endorsement as I am now. 

To the end that there should be no pretext for "fili- 
bustering- " (as I knew the amendment mig-ht be defeated in 
that wa}'), I determined from the start to so conduct the 
debate that every g-entleman opposed to the amendment who 
cared to be heard should have ample time and opportunity. 

After the previous question had been seconded, and all 
debate ordered closed, there could be but two roll-calls (if 
there were no filibustering-) before the final vote. 

The first roll-call was on a motion made by the opposi- 
tion, to lay my motion to reconsider on the table. Such a 
motion is g-enerally regarded as a test vote. 

Hundreds of tally sheets had been distributed on the 
floor and in the galleries, many being in the hands of ladies. 
Before the result of the first roll-call was announced, it was 
known all over the House that the vote was two less than 
the necessary two-thirds, and both Mr. Stevens of Penn- 
S3dvania and Mr. Washburn of Illinois excitedly exclaimed: 
"General, we are defeated." "No, g-entlemen, we are not," 
was my prompt answer. The second vote was on my motion 
to reconsider, which would bring- the House, at the next roll- 
call, to a direct vote on the passage of the amendment. 

The excitement was now the most intense I ever wit- 
nessed; the oldest members, with the Speaker and the re- 
porters in the galleries, believed that we were defeated. 
When the result of the second vote was announced, we 
lacked one; vote of two-thirds, whereupon many threw down 
their tally sheets and admitted defeat. I now arose and 
stood, while the roll was being called on the final vote and 
said to those around me, that we would have not less than 
four (4), and I believed seven (7) majority over the necessary 
two-thirds. 

As the roll was completed, the Speaker directed that his 
name be called as a member of the House, and when he voted 
he announced to an astonished assemblage, "that the yeas 
were 119, and the nays 56, and that the bill had received the 
two-thirds majority required by the Constitution." It was a 



— 712 — 

moment or two before the House or the g-allcries recovered 
from their surprise and recog"nized the fact that we had 
triumphed. When they did, a shout went up from the floor 
and g-alleries, and the vast audience rose to their feet, man}" 
members jumping- on their desks, with shouts and waving- of 
hats and handkerchiefs, and g-ave vent to their feeling's b}' 
every demonstration of J03-. It was a scene such as I had 
never before witnessed, and can never be witnessed ag-ain. 

Mr. Ingersoll, of Illinois, said: "Air. Speaker, in honor 
of this sublime and immortal event, I move that this House 
do now adjourn," which motion was carried. 

When this vote was taken, the House had but 183 mem- 
bers, 94 of whom were Republicans, 64 Democrats, and 25 
border-State Union men. 

If the vote is analyzed, it will be seen that of the 119 
votes recorded for the amendment 13 were by men from the 
border States, and eleven (11) were b}' Democrats from the 
free States. If but 3 out of the 24, who voted with us, had 
voted ag-ainst the amendment, it would have failed. If but 
four (4) of the eig-ht members who were absent had appeared 
and voted ag-ainst it, it would have been lost. Had all the 
Northern Democrats who supported the amendment voted 
ag-ainst, it would have been defeated b}' 26 votes. Had all 
the border-State men who voted for it voted ag-ainst, it 
would have failed by 32 votes. 

If the border-State men and Northern Democrats who 
voted for the amendment had voted ag-ainst, it would have 
failed b}' 65 votes. 

Mr. Lincoln was especially delig-hted at the vote which 
the amendment received from the border slave States, and 
frequently congratulated me on that result. 

Bancroft, the historian, has drawn with a g-raphic pen 
the characters of many of the able and illustrious men of the 
Revolution which achieved our independence. In writing- of 
Georg-e Mason, of Virg-inia, he said: "His sincerity made 
him wise and bold, modest and unchang-ing-, with a scorn for 
anything mean and cowardly, as illustrated in his unselfish 
attachment to human freedom." And these identical quali- 
ties of head and heart were pre-eminently conspicuous in all 




Members of the Senate and House of Representatives 
who voted for the Thirteenth Amendment. 



— 713 — 

the border statesmen who voted for the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment. 

It would be di£6.cult in an}' ag-e or country to find grand- 
er or more unselfish and patriotic men than Henry Winter 
Davis and Governor Francis Thomas of jNIaryland, or James 
S. Rollins, Frank P. Blair and Governor King- of Missouri, or 
Georg-e H. Yeaman of Kentucky, or N. P. Smithers of Dela- 
ware, and not less worthy of mention for their unchanging- 
fidelity to principle are all the Northern Democrats who voted 
for the amendment, prominent among* whom I may name 
Governor Eng-lish, of Connecticut ; Judg-e Homer A. Nelson 
and Moses S. Odell, of New York ; Archibald McAllister, of 
Pennsylvania ; Wells A. Hutchins, of Ohio, and A. C. Bald- 
win, of Michig-an. 

Of the twenty-four border-State and Northern men who 
made up this majority which enabled us to win this victory, 
all had defied their party discipline, and had deliberately and 
with unfaltering- faith marched to their political death. 
These are the men whom our future historians will honor, 
and to whom this nation owes a debt of eternal g-ratitude. 

But seven of this twenty-four are now living-, the others 
have gone to 

"Join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead, who live again 
In minds made better by their presence ; live 
In pulses stirred to generosity, 
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
'ir For miserable aims that end with self." 



ADDRESS 

OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, 



At Memorial Hall, Toledo, Ohio, June 2, 1890. 



REMINISCENCES OF THE GREAT REBELLION — CALHOUN, SEWARD 

AND LINCOLN. 



Memorial Hall, Toledo, O., June 2, 1890. 
General James M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio. 

Dear Sir: The undersig-ned, on behalf of the Toledo 
Branch Society of the Army of the Potomac and the Veteran 
Association of Battery H, 1st O. V. Lig-ht Artillery, do 
hereby most heartily thank you for 3'our able, instructive and 
eloquent address this evening delivered at Memorial Hall, 
and earnestly solicit a copy of the same, with j'our consent 
that it be published in the public journals and in such more 
permanent and enduring form as may be deemed best. 

Hoping for and awaiting your favorable reply, we are 
Your obedient servants, 
J. C. Lee, L. F. Lyttle, 

Chas. M. Montgomery, N. Houghton, 

D. P. Chamberlin, 
For the Toledo Branch Society of the Army of the Potomac. 
Wm. Corlett, J. L. Pray, 

Wm. E. Parmelee, John H. Merrell, 

W. G. Pierce, 
For the Veteran Association of Battery H, 1st O. V. Light 
Artillery 

(714) 



— 715 



Toi^EDO, Ohio, June 3, 1890. 
Gentlemen: It g-ives me pleasure to comply with the 
wishes of the societies which you represent. 

Herewith please find copy of my address as requested. 
It is proper to state that the major portion of the address, 
touching- the relation of Calhoun, Seward, and Lincoln to the 
War of the Rebellion, was put in type and the historic quota- 
tions verified before its delivery. 

The extemporary part of the address was so faithfully 
reported that but few corrections, as you see, were required. 

Truly yours, 

J. M. Ashley. 
To General John C. Lee, 

William Corlett and others, 

Committee. 



Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : I need 
not tell you how welcome your cordial g-reeting- is to me to- 
nig-ht. You can all see that. In again meeting- so many of 
my old friends face to face, I remember with pride the gfreet- 
ings which I have received on like occasions, when making- 
public addresses here at home. And as I stand here and 
recognition follows recognition, my pulse beats are quicker, 
and I am glad that I accepted the invitation of your com- 
mittee. At first I felt that I could not take the time, and I 
certainly should not have done so but for the worthy object 
which your committee represented to me you had in hand. 
The surroundings in this hall ; the beautiful display of flags 
—with the quartet singing, and the thoughts and emotions 
of the hour, stir my heart to its very depths, and carries me 
back to the historic scenes and heroic acts of 1861, and I 
feel that I am again but thirty-six years old. In my mind's 
eye there is now passing before me panorama after panorama, 
the like of which the world had never seen, and of which 
many before me formed a part. And though more than a 
quarter of a century has elapsed, I can see to-night, as I 
then saw, the advancing, resistless power, which glowed in 



— 716 — 

face and eye and step, as tiie volunteer soldiers of the repub- 
lic, in the faith and hope and streng-th of youth, marched 
forth to victory or death. 

Four years later, I saw, as I now see, passing" in review be- 
fore the acting" President, his Cabinet and Generals, at the 
national capital, the survivors of that invincible arm}-, with 
war-worn faces and torn and tattered banners, returning 
victorious to their homes amid the acclamations of a grate- 
ful people, and as long as I live (and listen as now) I shall 
hear the measured and triumphal tread of their immortal 
feet. [Applause.] 

But I fear to trust myself as of old, on an occasion like 
this ; and I have put in cold tj^pe what I propose to say to you 
to-night, except such anecdotes as I may interject. 

Mr. President : The annals are 3'et largcl}- unwritten of 
the men who, prior to and during the War of the Rebellion, 
molded and directed public opinion ; raised, organized and 
equipped armies for the defense of the nation's life and led 
them to victor}'. But the facts will soon be eag"erly g-leancd 
from the records of the past,- and woven into some of the 
most thrilling and instructive chapters of our national 
history. 

So also must the unwritten history of the master con- 
spirators in the slaveholders' rebellion be compiled and writ- 
ten by impartial and conscientious historians who " shall a 
round, unvarnished tale deliver, nor set down aught in 
malice." 

As one of the actors in the national Congress, from the 
beginning to the end of that unprovoked rebellion, it is to- 
night my duty, in addressing 3-ou, to speak dispassionately 
of men and facts from my personal recollection, refreshed by 
such official and other authenticated records as I can com- 
mand. 

Within the limits of such an address, I can only present 
to you in brief such facts as are within ni}' mcmor}-, or can 
be verified from accepted sources, touching the opinions and 
movements of public men, parties and churches, which paved 
the way for and made possible the rebellion of 1861. 

Had not ni}' library, which I had for many 3-cars been 
collecting, with all my private and political papers (includ- 



— Tir- 
ing- ttianv letters both from leading" abolitionists ana seces- 
sionists) been destroyed by fire in 1871, I should have given 
you some original reading" to-night. 

Beginning active systematic work as an abolitionist when 
but eighteen, I spared neither time nor labor to learn and 
thoroughly understand the position and tendency of every 
public man of note or prominence in the South, and also the 
exact status of as many of the men of intellect in that sec- 
tion who were not in public life, as could be induced to an- 
swer my letters, especially clergyman. 

Like most boys, I was a worshiper of great men, partic- 
ularly military men ; and before I was fifteen I made a pil- 
grimag-e to the "Hermitage" to see the idol of my heart, 
General Jackson. 

Before that, I had seen at Fleming" Springs (a fashion- 
able Kentuck3^ resort in those days). Colonel Richard M. 
Johnson, Vice President ; General Leslie Coombs, Henry CIslJ, 
Cassius M. Clay and Mr. Corwin of Ohio ; all of whom I 
then reg-arded as among" the greatest men in the world. 

In February, 1841, I went to "Washington to witness the 
inauguration of General Harrison on the 4th of March, and 
especially to see Mount Vernon and the tomb of Washington. 
When I visited the gallery of the House of Representatives, 
the first man I asked to have pointed out to me was ex-Presi- 
dent John Quincy Adams, " the old man eloquent," as he was 
called. I then looked upon Mr. Adams as one of the most 
extraordinary men in this country, and especially admired the 
way in which he handled the " slave barons." 

The fact that he was the only ex-President who had ever 
served as a member of Congress added to my esteem for his 
character, and this admiration remains as strong and fresh 
to-day as it was then. 

You will all remember that he was stricken down in the 
House, and fell with his face to the foe, fighting the slave 
conspirators, when he was over eighty years old. 

While in Washington, and before the inauguration of 
General Harrison, Colonel Johnson, the outgoing Vice-Presi- 
dent (who was a friend of my father), introduced me to Pres- 
ident Van Buren at the White House. I then regarded my 
presentation to Mr. Van Buren as the most important event 



-718 — 

of m}' life. I was also delig-hted to be introduced to John M. 
Botts and Henry A. Wise, leading- Virginia Whigs, and to 
R. M. T. Hunter, a leading Democrat, each of whom were 
members of the House, and were" regarded by their friends at 
that time as remarkable men. 

Four years later I attended the Democratic National 
Convention at Baltimore in May, 184^ (although not a voter), 
and through the friendship of ex-Vice-President Johnson had 
a seat on the floor of the convention with the Kentucky dele- 
gation ; I then favored the nomination of Van Buren and 
Johnson, the anti-Calhoun ticket, which had been defeated in 
1840. 

Before the Baltimore convention assembled, I visited 
AVashington, to study the situation. (Imagine a boy of 
twenty studying the situation.) Mr. George M. Bibb, of 
Kentuck}', at that time Secretary of the Treasury, introduced 
me to President John Tyler, who was openly a candidate for 
the Democratic nomination at Baltimore. 

Mr. Bibb also introduced me to the great nullifier, John 
C. Calhoun, then Mr. Tyler's Secretary of State. 

After the convention at Baltimore had nominated James 
K. Polk of Tennessee for President, and George M. Dallas of 
Pennsj-lvania for Vice-President, I returned to Washington, 
and while there called on Mr. Calhoun twice to look at and 
study the man. Personally Mr. Calhoun was to me the most 
pleasing man I have ever met, and the memory of my inter- 
views, and the letters which I afterwards received from him, 
will always be a source of pleasure. I was an ardent ad- 
mirer of General Jackson, and knew that the old General 
hated the great nullifier, and had expressed a wish to hang 
him ; but notwithstanding* this fact, each time I talked with 
Mr. Calhoun he charmed me by the frankness and freedom 
of his manner, and the dignity and courtesy of his bearing. 

If I could have accepted his pro-slavery and* his States'- 
rights opinions, I should certainly at that time have followed 
his leadership as enthusiastically as thousands of j'oung- 
Southern men of that day followed him faithfully, and ad- 
hered to his political heresies and fatal dogmas until death, 
or the defeat of the Rebellion, buried them in a common 
grave forever. I afterwards came to know that Mr. Calhoun 



— 719 — 

had been the master conspirator in defeating- the nomination 
of Mr. Van Buren at Baltimore, and that, as Secretary ol 
State, he officially committed the President-elect (James K. 
Polk), one; day before his inaug-uration, to the unjust and in- 
defensible war with Mexico. 

I state these facts about myself that you may know how, 
through correspondence and personal acquaintance, I was 
enabled in 1861 to clearly comprehend the power and purpose 
of the conspirators, and the dang-er which menaced the 
Nation's life. 

For thirty years or more prior to the Rebellion, the slave 
conspirators worked like " sappers and miners" in their 
preparation for it. They were tireless, cunning and un- 
scrupulous in all they proposed or did. If I should now un- 
dertake to present in their historic order but one in ten of 
their so-called "peace and compromise propositions," it 
would require all the time which I propose to g-ive to my ad- 
dress. 

One of their earliest, boldest and most objectionable acts 
was to deny the rig-ht of any citizen to "petition Congress 
on the subject of slavery." The presentation of such pe- 
titions by John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Mr. Gid- 
dings of Ohio and Mr. Blade of Vermont was the pretext for 
a majority of the "• slave barons" in the House to threaten 
to w-ithdraw unless the North " accepted in good faith as a 
peace offering and compromise" the adoption of a "gag- 
rule" which they at once formulated, and, with the aid of 
Northern allies, they had adopted. 

From the hour of the adoption of the " gag-rule" until 
the War of the Rebellion, the "slave-barons" were practi- 
cally the nation's political masters. 

On the 24th of November, 1832, Calhoun and his co-con- 
spirators in South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession, 
using the tariff as a pretext, and then and there an organ- 
ized scheme of a slave empire took form and shape. General 
Jackson's proclamation against nullification, and his message 
to Congress, were patriotic and able State papers. The his- 
tory of that formidable conspiracy ought to be impressed on 
every child of the republic, to the end that General Jackson's 
noble and manly bearing might the better be contrasted with 



— 720 — 

President Buchanan's weak and humiliating surrender to the 
demands made b)' the rebel conspirators of 1860 and 1861. 

In 1836 Calhoun inaugurated the Texas annexation 
scheme, and attempted to force it into the presidential elec- 
tion of that year. 

In his "Thirt}' Years' View," Senator Benton,* when 
speaking- of this Texas annexation plot, declared that " the 
Calhoun conspirators had organized and revived the nullifica- 
tion and disunion plot of 1832, and revived it under circum- 
stances more dangerous than ever, since coupled with a pop- 
ular question which gave the plotters the honest sympathies 
of the patriotic millions." 

" I have often," he added, " intimated it before, but now 
proclaim it. Disunion is at the bottom of this long concealed 
Texas machination. Intrigue and speculation co-operate, 
and I denounce it to the American people." 

"Under the pretext of getting Texas into the Union, 
the scheme is to get the South out of it. A separate con- 
federacy, stretching from the Atlantic to the Californias, is 
the cherished vision of disappointed ambition [pointing to 
Calhoun], and for this consummation every circumstance has 
been carefully and artfully contrived." 

This speech by Senator Benton was made before our 
unjust war with Mexico, and of course before the acquisition 
of California and Mexican territory, or the completion of the 
Texas annexation plot, and shows how clearly the great 
Senator understood the conspirators. 

In that same speech he declares " that he intends to save 
himself for the day when the battle for the disunion of these 
States is to be fought ; not in words, but with iron, and for 
the hearts of traitors, who will appear in arms against their 
country." 

These were prophetic words of warning, uttered by one 
of our greatest Senators ; but they were unheeded. 

Mr. John Tyler, who had been elected Vice-President as 
a Whig with General Harrison in 1840, became the acting 
President on the death of the President in 1841, one month 
after his inauguration. 



* See Senator Beuton's speeches in the United States Senate prior to the Mexican 
War. 



— 721 — 

At first secret!}', and then openl5% Tyler abandoned the 
Whig- part}^ which elected him, and identified himself with 
the Calhoun nullification wing- of the Democratic party. 
As Benton, in his " Thirty Years' View" states it : "The 
Texas annexation scheme now became an intrig-ue on the part 
of some for the Presidency, and a plot to dissolve the Union 
on the part of others, and a Texas scrip and land speculation 
scheme with many," and he openly denounced it.* 

Prior to making- an of&cial move for the consummation of 
the Texas annexation plot, it became necessary to get Mr. 
Webster, who was Secretary of State, out of Tyler's Cabinet, 
and the conspirators were equal to the task. Mr. Webster 
was without much trouble bowed out of the Cabinet, and 
Mr. Leg-are of South Carolina selected for his place. 

In a short time Mr. Legare died and Mr. Upshur of Vir- 
ginia, an ardent disciple of Calhoun, and a personal friend, 
was made Mr. Leg-are's successor as Secretary of State. 

Within a few months Mr. Upshur was killed by the ex- 
plosion of a big gun on board the Princeton, and Mr. 
Calhoun was made his successor. The Texas annexation and 
secession plot now took form and shape under the direction 
of the original conspirator. 

One of the earliest and most extraordinary official acts of 
Mr. Calhoun, after assuming- the office of Secretary of State, 
was to write and publish the first and most elaborate official 
State paper ever issued by this Government in favor of the 
maintenance and propag-ation of slavery. Mr. Benton saj^s 
"that Mr. Calhoun did not permit this document to be pub- 
lished until all hope for the success of his intrigue for the 
Democratic nomination at Baltimore in 1844 had been aban- 
doned and a conspiracy to form a separate republic consisting" 
of Texas and some Southern States had become the object" 
of Calhoun and his followers. f 

In a short time after the defeat of Mr. Van Buren for 
renomination at Baltimore in 1844 by the selection of Polk, a 
mass convention was held in South Carolina, at which reso- 
lutions were adopted "in favor of a convention of all the 



'"See Benton's Thirty Years' View, Vol. II., chapter on Texas Annexation. 
tSee Benton's " Thirty Years' View." 

46 



722 

slaveholding- States, to demand the prompt annexation of 
Texas, with or without war," and if refused by the 
North, on such terms as the Calhoun conspirators dictated, 
'* the Southern States should proceed peacefully and calm- 
ly to dissolve the Union and annex Texas to the Southern 
Confederacy." 

Conventions of a like character were also held in a num- 
ber of Southern States immediately after the South Carolina 
manifesto was issued, at which Southern conventions, reso- 
lutions such as I have just quoted were enthusiastically 
adopted. 

Two days before the inaug"uration of Polk, the Texas 
annexation plot, with its scrip and land-jobbing" scheme, 
was practically consummated by Mr. Calhoun, as- Secretary 
of State, and the unjust war with Mexico followed as the 
conspirators intended. 

President Polk could have defeated the Calhoun-Texas 
annexation progframme had he been a man of ability and 
honestly ag-ainst the plot. But, as he was a weak and vain 
man, the conspirators easily captured him, and the war, 
boldly inaugurated for slave conquest and domination, ended 
in the acquisition of California and one-third of Mexico. 

When INIexico, a sister republic, lay prostrate, weak and 
bleeding at the feet of the United States, and her officials 
were forced to execute an unjust treat}', relinquishing all 
claim to any part of Texas, and also cede to us California 
and what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada, 
and all the territory north of the southern boundary as now 
designated on our maps, except the Gadsden purchase (about 
ONE-THIRD of her entire territorial area), her Peace Commis- 
sioner sought to have a clause inserted in the treaty which 
should provide " that the United States should engage 

NOT to permit the ESTABLISHMENT OF SLAVERY IN ANY 
PART OP THE TERRITORY THUS CEDED." 

In a communication of September 4, 1847, from Mr. Trist, 
our Minister to Mexico, to Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, 
he writes that the Mexican Commissioner said to him : " If it 
were proposed to the people of the United States to part with 
a portion of their territory in order that the Inquisition 
should be established there, it would excite no stronger feel- 



ing* of abhorrence than those awakened in Mexico by the 
prospect of the introduction of human slavery in any terri- 
tory parted with by her."* 

Mr. Trist, when communicating- the above proposition to 
this Government in his letter to Mr. Buchanan, said that he 
answered the Mexican Commissioner as follows : 

" The bare mention of such a treaty is impossible. No 
American President would dare present such a treaty to the 
Senate. I assured him that if it were in their power to offer 
me the whole territory described in our project, increased 

TEN-FOLD IN VALUE AND IN ADDITION COVERED A FOOT 
THICK WITH PURE GOLD, ON THE SINGLE CONDITION THAT 
SLAVERY SHOULD BE EXCLUDED THEREFROM, I COULD NOT 
ENTERTAIN THE OFFER FOR A MOMENT, NOR EVEN THINK. OP 
COMMUNICATING IT TO WASHINGTON." 

Now, g-entlemen, you see the kind of men we had to fight. 

The historian will find no difficulty in determining- why 
the slave barons confided so implicitly in Mr. Buchanan 
when President. His conduct while Senator and Secretary 
of State, and Minister to Great Britain was a g-uarantee of 
his subservient co-operation. 

As I now look back upon that cold-blooded crime, and 
see a small, weak, strug-g-ling- sister republic, not claiming- 
to rank with us in wealth, culture or civilization, crushed 
beneath the iron heel of power, without the shadow of a pre- 
text — not only without a pretext, but in the face of an official 
falsehood, pleading- that the territory and people which she 
is forced to cede to us shall not be cursed with human slavery, 
I feel the blush of shame ting-le my cheek. 

You all know how the slave conspirators treated this 
manly and pathetic appeal of the Mexican Commissioner. 
And what must the honest American historian say of this ap- 
palling- and indescribable crime ? 

The annexation of Texas was now an accomplished fact; 
the ten millions or more of worthless " Texas scrip" (as it was 
called) then afloat, most of which was in the hands of the 
conspirators, now became valuable, and the land "certifi- 
cates" at once commanded a ready market. The slave barons 
thus triumphed politically and financially at the expense of 

* Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Powar. 



— 724 — 

more than two hundred millions (the cost of the war) from 
the public Treasury, the loss of over twent}- thousand lives 
of American soldiers, and the sacrifice of our national honor. 
The discussion which followed the proposition to pro- 
hibit slavery by law in all the territory acquired from Mexi- 
co, again shook the nation politically from centre to circum- 
ference, during- which Mr. Calhoun, for the first time in our 
history, in an elaborate speech, "denied that Congress 

HAD THE POWER UNDER THE CONSTITUTION TO PROHIBIT 
SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES OP THE UNITED STATES AC- 
QUIRED BY THE COMMON BLOOD AND TREASURE OF THE NA- 
TION." You will note that Mr. Calhoun now denies, for the 
first time, a power which had been exercised under Jefferson 
and all the earlier Presidents without question down to that 
day. 

Again the slave barons threatened to dissolve the Union, 
unless their imperious demands were complied with, and, as 
a result, a series of so-called compromise measures were 
patched up, by which California was admitted as a free 
State, the Territories left open to slaverj- south of 36 deg. 
30 min., and a new and more exacting fugitive-slave lav/ was 
passed, than which there never was, in the history of any 
civilized people, a more infamous enactment. 

In 1846, the Supreme Court, which had been deliberately 
packed by the slave barons, decided, in the Van Zandt case, 
that the Constitution and laws of the United States recog- 
nized property in man, and the United States Marshal for the 
District of Columbia soon after advertised two colored women 
for sale, and after selling them at public auction deposited 
the money in the Treasury of the United States at Washing- 
ton.* The Dred Scott decision soon followed, and the repub- 
lic of Washington and Jefferson was thus practically trans- 
formed into a slave despotism. 

In the Presidential election of 1852 both the Whig and 
Democratic parties resolved, in their platforms, to abide by, 
and maintain in perpetuity, the compromise measures of 1850, 
including the fugitive-slave law ; and pledged themselves to 



' Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power 



discountenance all discussion of the slavery question in Con- 
gress or out of it. 

Many well-meaning* but weak men in the North imagined 
that this was to be the last and final demand of the slave 
barons. They were doomed to disappointment. 

In 1854 a new crisis was precipitated upon a long--suffer- 
ing- and confiding" country. It will be observed that whenever 
a " crisis" was needed, the conspirators always had one ready 
at hand. 

The slave barons now demanded as a condition of re- 
maining* in the Union, that the " Alissouri Compromise" 
should be repealed, to the end that they could take their 
slaves into Kansas, and thus make a slave State out of a 
Territory which by their own votes had been dedicated to 
freedom, as a compromise to g-et Missouri into the Union as 
a slave State. 

To this insulting- demand a majority of the old Whig- 
party in the North, and many members of the Democratic 
party, entered strong- and vig-orous protests. 

During- this disgraceful controversy nearly all the Whig- 
members of Cong-ress, both Senators and Representatives 
from the slave States, held a secret caucus in Washing-- 
ton without conferring- with, or notifying-, their Northern 
political associates, at which secret caucus a majority of the 
Southern Whig-s attending- it decided to support the repeal of 
the Missouri compromise, as proposed by Doug-las. 

This caucus, and the secret action of the Southern 
Whig-s, terminated the very existence of the old Whig- party. 
All will remember that Mr. Doug-las' Kansas-Nebraska bill 
became law, and that the Republican party was then born. 
As a people we had now reached a point in our moral descent 
and political abasement from which nothing- but a baptism 
of fire and blood could have redeemed and held us tog-ether 
as a free people, and saved us from the decay and death that 
had been the fate of all the slaveholding- empires of the 
world. 

The "slave barons" were everywhere rampant and de- 
fiant, the National Government subservient and obedient, 
and the Southern churches either silent, apolog-etic or open 
defenders. 



— 726 — 

I have thus traced the steps by which, in the land of 
Washing-ton and Jefferson, the government which the_y es- 
tablished became a despotism completely dominated in all its 
parts by an imperious, slaveholding olig-arch}-. . 

As a historical fact, we find that our democratic repub- 
lic had been completely transformed, except in name, and 
was then being- administered in the interest of an insolent 
and unscrupulous privileg-ed class. 

The national Constitution, which prohibited the importa- 
tion of slaves after the year 1808, and the laws and treaties of 
the United States which made the slave trade on the high 
seas "piracy," were trampled in scorn under their feet. 

While the slave conspirators in political life were mold- 
ing- and directing- parties, and through them administering 
the National Government, and on their own motion making 
war and conquering new territory for slavery, at the expense 
of the blood and treasure of the nation, the slave barons were 
co-operating commercially, by defiantly and actively engaging 
in the African slave trade, which was by law and treaties 
with all civilized nations declared pirac}-, and the result on 
conviction, death. In the year 1858, the year in which I 
was first elected to Congress from this district, the flag of 
the United States actually covered more pirate ships engaged 
in the African slave trade than the flags of all the other civil- 
ized nations of the world combined. DeBow's Southern 
Review states in 1857 "that forty slavers were annually 
fitted out in the ports of New York and the East, and that 
the traffic yielded their owners an annual net profit of seven- 
teen million dollars." 

In November, 1853, the Southern Standard said : "We 
can not onl}- preserve domestic servitude, but can def}- the 
power of the world. With firmness and judgment we can 
open up the African slave immigration again, and people 
this noble region of the tropics.' 

The New York Evening Post published a list of names 
of 85 vessels, fitted out in the port of New York between the 
1st of February, 1859, and the 15th of July, 1860, for the 
African slave trade. 

The New York Leader, at that time a Tammany 
paper, asserted " that on an average two vessels each week 



— 727 — 

cleared out of our harbor bound for Africa and a human 
cargo." 

The New York "World declared that "from thirty to 
sixty thousand slaves a year, under the American flag-, are 
taken from Africa, by vessels, sailing from the single port 
of New York." 

I remember when a yacht called the Wanderer ran 
into a harbor near Brunswick, Georgia, in broad daylight, in 
December, 1858, and landed a human cargo of some three 
hundred or more slaves direct from Africa. This fact was 
duly chronicled at the time b}^ the Southern newspapers, and 
some of the blacks were dressed up in flaming toggery, and 
driven in carriages through the public streets, as a menace 
and defiance to the National Government. 

If the " slave barons " could have held possession of, and 
administered the National Government for another four years, 
as they had for the ten preceding years, there is no question 
but that a majority of the Southern States v/ould have passed 
laws authorizing incorporated companies, and individual citi- 
zens of their respective States, to import direct from Africa, 
China, or elsewhere, such persons as might be apprenticed 
to said corporations or citizens, for a term of service not to 
EXCEED TWENTY-ONE YEARS. That such a Scheme was dis- 
cussed in 1857 and 1858 I know, and that it had the approval 
of many slave barons and many more who hoped to become 
"slave barons," if such laws should be enacted by their States, 
I also know. Of course it was not intended nor expected that 
ONE in a thousand of such apprentices would live long enough 
(even if they lived fifty years) to see the end of their serv- 
itude. 

The statutes of nearly all the Southern States provided 
for the arrest and sale into perpetual slavery of free negroes 
for petty offenses, which oftener than otherwise were not 
offenses in fact, under which laws, the kidnapping and sale of 
free men, from the Northern as well as the Southern States, 
were encouraged and protected. 

And the Southern law reports and advertisements of run- 
away slaves furnish ample testimony that " slavery wasn't 
of nary color," as Hosea Bigelow put it. 

I have SEEN a number of persons, held as slaves, who 



— 728 — 

were be3^ond all question pure white, without a drop of Afri- 
can or mixed blood in their veins, and have seen hundreds, 
such as- the newspapers describe as "runawaj's," and "so 
white, that they would readily pass for white persons." 
Slaves of this description were often the children of the slave- 
master. 

I knew many Southern men, and served with some of 
them in Cong-ress, who openl}- proclaimed that " the natural 
and normal condition of capital and labor was that in which 
capical owned the labor as slaves." 

In 1858 and 1859 the domination in the National Govern- 
ment of the slave barons and kidnappers at home and of the 
African slave pirates on the high seas was complete. 

On every ocean our flag- practically gave the slave pirates 
immunity from search or seizure. At home, no one of the 
thousands who were notoriously eng-aged in this infernal 
traffic had ever been convicted, while hundreds of well-known 
Christian citizens, both men and women, who had obeyed 
the Divine command to g-ive a cup of cold water or crust of 
bread to an escaped bondman, fleeing to Canada, were ar- 
rested, convicted and punished by long, cruel and unjust im- 
prisonment. 

It is conceded that not less than half a million slaves 
were imported direct from Africa and sold in this country af- 
ter the slave trade had been declared " piracy" by law, and 
by treaty with all civilized nations, and yet but one slave 
PIRATE was ever convicted and hanged in the United States. 
His name was Captain Nathaniel Gordon, and he was ex- 
ecuted in New York City, February 28, 1862. 

I declined to sign a petition for his pardon, and told Mr. 
Lincoln it was about time somebody was hung for slave piracy. 

THE DEFEAT OF DOUGLAS. 

The deliberate and successfully-executed plot of the con- 
spirators to defeat Mr. Douglas for President in 1860 gave 
ample proof of their consolidated power and indicated unmis- 
takably their ultimate purpose. Their last and crowning 
political move was the one, in which they had convened in 
Washington, what they called a "Peace Congress." 



— 729 — 

"When I tell you that ex-President John Tj'ler, the mere 
creature of the Texas annexation conspirators of 1845, was 
selected for its President, you can without much effort g-et at 
the intellectual and political status of nine out of ten of the 
men, who fussed and fumed and amazed the country by the 
stupidity and folly of their so-called "peace propositions." 

When the future historian comes to summarize the facts 
of which I have spoken, he will write: "Politically, from 
1843 to 1861, this was the rottenest so-called civilized g-overn- 
ment on earth ; morally it was a lazar-house full of dead 
men's bones ; financially it was bankrupt, and the conspira- 
tors for its overthrow, throug-h the Secretary of the Treasury, 
were borrowings money at 12 per cent." And he will add, to 
the glory of our volunteer army, of which you formed a part, 
that "the madness of secession and the baseness of slave 
baron conspiracies at home, and slave piracy under our flag- 
on the hig-h seas, was then stamped out, and made impossible 
forever." 

In the midst of this moral and political abasement and 
national deg"radation of which I have spoken, Abraham Lin- 
coln was called by his countrymen to the ofSce of President. 

Cong-ress convened in extra session on his proclamation. 
All the laws necessary for the organization of an army were 
enacted. Full power was given him in his discretion to or- 
der and direct the army ; and for four years, which I need not 
undertake to summarize to-night, he so administered the 
government as at every step to command the profound admi- 
ration not only of the great men of this country, but of the 
great men of the world. 

I did not want Mr. Lincoln to invite either Mr. Seward 
or Mr. Chase to seats in his Cabinet. I was anxious to have 
them both in the Senate, as I looked on them as great Sena- 
tors. And then, I did not feel certain that Mr. Chase (who 
up to that time had given no evidence of financial ability) 
would make a successful Secretary of the Treasury ; while as 
a Senator I was certain he would stand with the foremost, as 
he had done, during his first term in that body. The legisla- 
ture of Ohio had just elected him for six years, and in view 
of the approaching storm, I felt confident he would make no 
personal or party mistake in the Senate, while he might fail 



— 730 — 

as Secretar}- of the Treasur3\ It was g-enerally rumored, 
earl}' in January, that Mr. Seward was to be Secretary of 
State, and when I met Mr. Lincoln soon after he reached 
Washing-ton, and this announcement was confirmed by him, 
I simply said : "Mr. President, I cannot tell you how much 
I regret it." He expressed some surprise, and wanted to 
know my objections. I answered that it was too late now to 
talk about it, but that my objections were the same as those 
I had against Mr. Seward's nomination at Cliicag"o, and 
that the unsatisfactory speech which he had just made in the 
Senate, was an additional objection. 

I sugg-ested but one name for his Cabinet, and that was 
Edwin M. Stanton, of Ohio, for Secretary of War (then a 
member of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet). I had known INIr. 
Stanton quite intimately from m}' boyhood, and recog-nized 
his great ability and tireless energ-y. In addition to this, I 
had repeatedly called at Mr. Stanton's house to confer with 
him after he became a member of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, 
and found him to be heart and soul against the conspirators ; 
that he fully understood their movements, and was ready and 
anxious to defeat their plots. 

One night after a protracted interview he walked to the 
door with me, and as he bade me g-ood-night, g^rasped my 
hand and said : "Stand firm ; you men have committed no 
blunder 3'et." When I repeated these words to Mr. Lin- 
coln, and related in substance other interviews of a like 
character, and told him something- of Mr. Stanton's early life 
in Ohio, I saw that I had made an impression on Mr. Lincoln 
quite favorable to him. 

But when the Cabinet was announced, I was about as 
disappointed as any man in Washing-ton, because there was 
but one man in it for whom I would have voted, as a first 
CHOICE, and for him onl}^ because he was from a border slave 
State, and that man was Mr. Bates of Missouri, for Attorne}' 
General. 

Of course I was delighted when later on, Mr. Lincoln 
made Mr. Stanton Secretary of War. 

All the objections I then had to Mr. Seward, as Secretary 
of State, and many more, soon became patent to the ordinary 
observer. 



— 731 — 

I had never reg-arded Mr. Seward as a practical man, nor 
a safe party leader, except for a party in the minority. His 
speech of January 12, 1861, in the Senate, after it was known 
he had been selected by Mr. Lincoln for Secretary of State, 
and his official blunders after he became Secretary, tell the 
stor}' of his utter inability to safely and successfully lead a 
great part}', charged with the administration of a government 
such as ours, during- the dark da3's from 1861 to 1865. 

He who now reads that speech of Mr. Seward, in the 
light of history, will fully comprehend that his leadership 
was like the blind leading the blind. 

That speech was prepared by Mr. Seward with more 
than his usual care, as it should have been, before its delivery 
in the Senate by the man soon to become Prime Minister. 

After it had been written and put in type, it was reviewed 
and recast, and conned over and over again, not only by Mr. 
Seward, but by more than one friend of ability and position, 
and every word or line that made it mean anything defi- 
nite was stricken out, and every word or suggestion was de- 
liberately added, that could possibly make it more foggy or 
nebulous. 

The day of its delivery in the Senate was a solemn and 
memorable one, not only in Washington, but throughout the 
country. The great heart of the nation was still and heavy 
with apprehension. Every loyal citizen expected and longed 
to have pointed out to him the way to preserve the national 
unity and national life without dishonor. Never in our his- 
tory has there been such an occasion for a statesman, and 
never before was there such a failure. 

Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, then an old man (and by 
far the ablest man with whom I served in Congress), walked 
over with me from the House to the Senate Chamber. We 
both had seats in the aisle, a little in front of Mr. Seward's 
desk, and could hear him distinctly. I- need not say that we 
listened, as did every one in that vast audience and in the 
entire nation, for one word or thought that would stir our 
hearts or give us hope. But no such word or suggestion, 
came in that speech from the man who was so soon to be 
charged with the most delicate and responsible office in Mr. 
Lincoln's Cabinet. 



— 732 — 

I have more than once seen both the Senate and House 
in mourning-, but never did I see so sad an audience quit the 
Senate Chamber as on that day. 

While walking- back with Mr. Stevens towards the 
House, I said : " Mr. Stevens, what do 3'ou say to all that ?'' 
His answer was short, sharp and characteristic. He said : 
" I have listened to every word, and by the living" God, I 
have heard nothing^." After going- with Mr. Stevens to his 
committee-room, I immediately returned to the Senate to get 
the opinion of the Senators with whom I was intimate. 
Taking Mr. Wade by the hand, I said : " Well, Mr. Senator, 
what have you to say ?" And he answered: "If we follow 
such leadership we will be in the wilderness longer than the 
children of Israel under Moses." Mr. Sumner said : "I 
knew what was coming, but confess that I am sad." Zac. 
Chandler did not wait for my question, but as I approached 
him, raised his hands and exclaimed : *' Great God ! how are 
the mighty fallen I" 

And this was the judgment of a majority of our friends, 
in both the Senate and House, with whom at that time I ex- 
changed opinions about the speech. It was reluctantl}' ad- 
mitted that it meant a backdown to the conspirators. 

And this, alas I was the best, and all, the new Prime 
Minister had to offer us. Instead of pointing out the path 
of duty and safety as a statesman should have done, he led 
us into the wilderness, enveloped in a cloud of words and 
metaphors, and there left us. 

I was anxious from the day of the delivery of that speech 
until the Republican Senators, with but one dissenting vote, 
requested Mr. Lincoln to dismiss Mr. Seward from his Cabi- 
net. And though the President did not comply with that re- 
quest of the Republican Senators, as I then thought and now 
think he should have done, I felt confident that we should 
from that time on have less of Mr. Seward's amazing as- 
sumption, that (when in his hand) " the pen is mightier 
than the sword." Mr. Lincoln's position and leadership was 
unquestioned from this date. 

SEWARD. 
Immediately after entering upon his duties as Secretary 



l-t-, ^ 

— /oo — 

of State, Mr. Seward assumed to direct all departments of 
the Government, substantially as if he were a British Prime 
Minister and Mr. Lincoln but the nominal Executive. 

Without consulting- either the President, the Secretary 
of War, or the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Seward undertook, 
secreth' and on his own responsibility, to direct the move- 
ments of military and naval officers as if he; were in fact 
President. He caused the rebel authorities in Charleston to 
be notified by telegraph that the " Administration had given 
a confidential order to reinforce Fort Sumter," to which Mr. 
Seward was opposed, as a matter of policy, and therefore se- 
cretly resolved to defeat it. The next day he notified Judge 
Campbell, a notorious secessionist, then on the Supreme 
Bench, that "faith as to Fort Sumter has been kept, wait 
and see." No one claims that Mr. Seward did this as a dis- 
loyal man, but as a theorist, who honestly believed that in 
his hand "the pen was mig"htier than the sword." Mr. 
Seward was, in theory, a centralist, rather than a disunionist, 
and yet he was absolutely without any fixed or clearly defined 
policy when the Rebellion broke out. He simpl}^ drifted on 
an unknown sea. His efforts at delay resulted in desperate 
expedients, and led him to send out secret agents to obstruct, 
mislead and delay all military and naval movements, for feg.r 
that actual war would falsify his prophetic utterances and 
defeat his negotiations. 

Over and over again he had declared that " within ninety 
days there would be peace," that " harmony and reconciliation 
would come within ninety days." 

How peace and harmony were to be secured he never 
clearly made known. He simply predicted it . 

In his speech of January 12th in the Senate he proposed 
to meet "exaction with concession," and "violence with 
peaceably submitting to the doctrine of coercion, and quietly 
evacuating all the forts, and abandoning all the public 
property in the rebel States, except where authority 

COULD BE EXERCISED WITHOUT WAGING WAR." 

He and General Scott had made up their minds "to let 
the wayward sisters depart in peace." 

By pursuing this policy, he hoped in some mysterious 



/v54 — 

■way ultimately to bring- each seceded State back into the 
Union. 

In that speech he said: "I am willing- to vote for an 
amendment to the Constitution declaring that it shall not, 
by any future amendment, be so altered as to confer on Con- 
gress power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any 
State." 

I say nothing of Mr. Seward s damaging dispatches to 
Mr. Adams, our Minister to Great Britain, nor of his blun- 
ders with other powers; I simply state that it was among our 
great misfortunes that he was called into the Cabinet. In 
the Senate he v/ould have been both usefui, and harmless. 
I saw Mr. Lincoln early the next morning after the 
Senatorial Committee called on him to ask for Mr. Sev/ard's 
removal. 

It was a characteristic interview. The President asked 
me "what I would do if I were in his place." This was a 
way in which he often put questions to men. I answered 
him " that what he would do or what I would do was not a 
fair way to put it," "but that if I was in his place and held 
his opinions, I would accept the resignations of Mr. Seward 
and Mr. Chase instanter; and at once appoint Mr. Collamcr 
of Vermont, Secretary of State, and INIr. Fessenden of INIainc, 
Secretary of the Treasury." 

The suggestion pleased Mr. Lincoln very much, espe- 
cially the naming- of Mr. Collamer for Secretar}' of State. 

Mr. Collamcr had been in General Harrison's Cabinet in 
1841, and was recognized as an able lawyer, as well as the 
most conservative Republican Senator in the Senate. Mr. 
Collamer had acted as chairman of the Senatorial Committee 
which had called on the President to demand Mr. Seward's 
dismissal from the Cabinet, and Mr. Lincoln saw at once that 
such an appointment would strike the extreme conservative 
wing of the Republican party very favorably, and he was all 
the more pleased with the suggestion because it came from 
so pronounced a radical as I was, and a recognized friend of 
Chase. He said two or three times: " Wh}-, Ashley, Colla- 
mer would make a first-class Secretar}' ; " and added, "and 
how it would surprise the Senate ! " 



— 735 — 



GENERAI, SCOTT. 



The day the first advance of our army marched across 
the long- bridg-e at Washington will always be a memorable 
one to me. I had never before seen such a military display. 
I went directly to the White House to see the President, but 
found that he had g-one over to General Scott's office; I fol- 
lowed and described with enthusiasm the marching- of our 
soldiers, sing-ing- "Old John Brown," and said: "Mr. Presi- 
dent, if our armies fight under the inspiration of that song, 
the gates of hell cannot prevail against us." General Scott 
(who was a Virginian) astonished me by saying "that he 
regretted to strike his mother." I replied with much warmth 
"that he who struck that flag [pointing to it] struck my 
mother and deserved death," and unceremoniously walked 
out, indignant at such an utterance from the commanding 
general of our armies. This incident tells the story of our 
national demoralization. General Scott, the commander of 
our armies, had at that time, unknown to Mr. Lincoln or the 
public, reached the amazing conclusion that it was best to 
" let the wayward sisters depart in peace." 

General Scott soon afterwards (under the manipulation 
of Seward) recommended the surrender of Fort Sumter and 
Fort Pickens. As the President, with the approval of the 
Cabinet, had before this ordered reinforcements and provisions 
to Fort Sumter, this sudden and unlooked-for change on the 
part of General Scott shook the faith of the President in him, 
and he immediately began the search for a younger and more 
reliable commander. 



THE ARMY. 

I do not care to introduce or dwell on the disasters of the 
Army of the Potomac, until General Grant assumed com- 
mand, nor will I attempt to criticise its defeated generals. I 
am not a military man, and therefore not competent for such, 
a task. 

That Generals McDowell, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker 



— 736 — 

and Pope did the best they could, no one now questions. 
That the_y did not do better was the nation's misfortune. 

The rank and file of our army both North and South 
were made up of as g-ood material as the world ever saw. In 
some respects the Southern soldier for a time had the advan- 
tag-e. First, every slave-master was born and trained to 
command; he became self-reliant and confident from youth 
up; he was an accomplished horseman, accustomed to out- 
door life and the use of firearms. These qualities, with a 
fiery temperament and splendid physical organization, made 
him the most formidable soldier in the world; and when j-ou 
add to this the fact that he was fig-hting- on his own chosen 
g-round, surrounded by friends, and with natural positions 
for defense, j^ou have a soldier of whom any g-eneral might 
well be proud. The Northwestern soldier had many of these 
admirable qualities, especially did he have the advantage 
which an out-door and frontier life gives in educating men to 
be self-reliant and accustomed to the use of horses and fire- 
arms. 

The soldiers from the East did not have the out-door 
life of their Western comrades, and it required a 3'ear or more 
of active training in the field to make them equal in this re- 
gard to Western men. But when the Eastern and Western 
soldiers were united under General Grant, the Army of the 
Potomac proved itself to be the equal of the soldiers in the 
Southern arm}', and from the day General Grant took com- 
mand of that army no more was heard about the inef&ciency 
or want of valor of the Army of the Potomac. 

And I might say here, in order to estimate men's char- 
acters, some little incident in their lives will often tell you 
the kind of men they are. That is especially true in civil 
life. You go into a congress of three hundred men and you 
will see the timid men coming together, you will see the 
reckless men together, and you will see the profound 
men together. And so in the army; you will find all the 
fighting men gravitate together, as if the}' understood and 
had confidence in each other. 

AVhcn General Grant, on the evening of the first day's 
battle at Shiloh (which had been a defeat), was told by his 
quartermaster that if again defeated to-morrow he would not 



have transportation enoug-h to carry the troops (65,000 in 
number) across the river, the General inquired: 

"How many can you handle ? " 

" Ten thousand," the quartermaster answered. 

"Well," said the General, quietly, "if we are defeated 
you will be able to carry all that are left. 

This incident admirably illustrates General Grant's 
determination of character. He simply determined to win or 
be annihilated. 

While talking- about soldiers, my mind recurs to Thomas, 
the g"randest fig-ure to me of all the war. You will remember 
what he said to General Steedman when he ordered him to 
make a charge. Steedman started at once to execute his 
order, but impulsively turning- back, said: "General, where 
shall I find 3'ou after the charge ? " 

"Right here, sir;" pointing- to the spot on which he 
stood. 

That told the story of General Thomas's character. It 
is also beautifully told in one of Mrs. Sherwood's war poems. 

Sheridan, when he came East, was assig-ned by Grant to 
Meade's command. Meade told Sheridan to g-o out with his 
cavalry and reconnoiter, but to be very careful about Stuart, 
as he was a troublesome fellow. Sheridan's blood was up in 
a minute, and he said with some strong- words, that he could 
knock hell out of him, if he could get at him. General 
Meade, who was a very quiet man, when he saw Grant said: 

"Well, General, that man Sheridan that you sent me is 
rather insubordinate." 

The General says: " How is that ? what did he do ? " 

General Meade repeated what Sheridan had said. 
. " Did Sheridan say that ? " inquired Grant. 

"Yes, sir; he did," rejoined Meade, with emphasis. 

"Why didn't you tell him to go and do it?" was all 
Grant said. 

Meade went back, took the hint, gave the order to 
Sheridan, and Stuart never troubled him afterwards. 

I went down to the Army of the Potomac v/ith a letter 
from Mr. Lincoln to Grant. I had become quite anxious for 
fear the Sixth rebel corps stationed at Petersburg- mig-ht be 
47 



— 738 — 

detached, and attack Sherman's rear, when he was marching 
from Atlanta to the sea. I kept talking- to the President 
about it until he sent me down to Grant's headquarters, and 
I staj^ed there ten daj's. The nig-ht before I started back I 
looked at the map on the table, and said to the General: " I 
wish you would show me the situation; I want to tell the best 
story I can to the President to-morrow; I am g^oing* up to- 
night." I had .been complaining about the dead cattle and 
dead mules and horses, and wanted the camp cleared up for 
fear of a pestilence. The General gave me satisfactory'- 
answers, and pointed out the situation on the map, and said 
to me: 

" For every three men of ours dead, five of theirs; for 
every three of our cattle dead, five of theirs." 

Picking up some paper on the table and crushing it in 
his hand, he says: 

" Tell the President I have got them like that ! " 

It made the cold chills run over me. But as I neared 
"Washington, and caught sight of the flag floating from the 
dome, it kept welling up in me, "Tell the President I have 
got them like that ! " It told the character of the man. 
When I repeated what he said to the President and others, 
they all felt exactly as I did. But after all it cheered us, 
and we all involuntarily exclaimed, " I have got them like 
that ! " 

And right here I might say that we of Northwestern 
Ohio never think of the army without thinking of the old 
Fourteenth, the bravest of the brave, and of General Steed- 
man, its gallant commander. But I want to say that the 
hundred-day men deserve honorable mention. The patriotic 
impulse that carried the hundred-day men into the army and 
to the Army of the Potomac, with Colonel Phillips at their 
head, and Lieutenant-Colonel Faskins and Richard Waite 
among the captains, and John J. Barker among the lieuten- 
ants, was as patriotic as that which carried the three-year 
men to the nation's rescue. 

I remember well their march through the streets of 
Washington, and the speech of Mr. Lincoln to them from the 
steps of the White House, and my address to them at the 
front. 



— 739 — 

These men were a part of the Army of the Potomac, and 
although they were there but one hundred days, those one 
hundred days were eventful days to us and to them, and 
they have a rig"ht equally with the veterans to the inheritance 
which comes from victories bravely won. Especially is 
honor due to the men who so g-allantly marched to battle 
when they were exempt by ag-e from military duty. 



LINCOI^N. 

It will not be claimed, even by partisan friends, that any 
one of our greatest statesmen or generals were faultless and 
committed no blunders. 

Young and inexperienced as I v/as, I felt confident that I 
knew as much about the secret purposes of the conspirators 
and their plots as many of our oldest leaders ; but I knew 
also that if so great a Senator as Mr. Benton of Missouri, 
who had served in the Senate for thirty years from a slave 
State, could not command the attention of the country when 
specially and publicly calling attention to the designs of the 
slave conspirators, a young and unknown abolitionist from a 
free State like myself, could not hope to do so. 

I therefore deferred to such men as Seward, Sumner and 
Fessenden in the Senate, and Stevens, Washburn, Grow and 
others in the House, and also to such men as Chase and 
Stanton in the Cabinet, and to Greeley, Wendell Phillips 
and others in private life. 

Before the Rebellion broke out I came to know that 
Seward was a "dreamer," who always lived high up in the 
clouds ; that Sumner with all his ability was pre-eminently 
a man of "books," and that Chase practically did not know 
men, and might be associated in the Senate for years with 
the chief conspirators, and be entirely ignorant of their 
movements or their plots. 

As I now look back and review, more calmly than I 
could then, the words and acts of our greatest men, Lincoln 
stands forth pre-eminent among them all. 

Without experience, and confronted by trials and respon- 
sibilities greater than any President who had preceded him, 



— 740 — 

he proved equal to ever}' emerg-ency, and never failed in the 
most trying" and difficult hour. 

Surrounded on every hand by traitors, and often misin- 
formed by real but mistaken friends and betraj-ed by pre- 
tenders, he faced a million rebels in arms, and never quailed 
nor faltered ; he, more than all others, secured the loj-al co- 
operation of the border slave States ; he was the one g'reat 
leader of the Republican part}-, and more, of all men of what- 
ever party who hoped for the triumph of the Union, and he 
occupied this position because he was fitted by nature for the 
g-reat task imposed upon him. His leadership was gentle 
but firm, cautious 3'et persistent. He was the one man of all 
the men I knew in those days of trial and danger, best fitted 
for the place he filled so well. As tender as a woman to 
suffering and sorrow, he stood forth during the entire rebel- 
lion, a colossus among men. 

" Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, 
Erect when multitudes bent to the storm." 

No man can depict the humiliations and catastrophies 
which this nation escaped by having Abraham Lincoln for 
President in 18G1 instead of William H. Seward. 

Back of Lincoln and Congress stood the rank and file of 
the army, to whom the greatest credit is due. And back of 
the army, there was a patriotic sentiment for national unity 
and national glor}-, which represented the moral force of an 
overwhelming majority of the nation. This sentiment molded 
and directed Lincoln and her statesmen, and inspired her 
generals and the army with the necessity of union and the 
hope of victor3% 

"Without this united moral force Congress would not 
have acted, the President would have been powerless, and the 
republic of Washington and Jefferson would have been di- 
vided, dismembered and destroyed, and on its ruins two or 
more discordant and hostile governments erected, which 
would have been a perpetual menace to each other and to the 
peace of the world. 



— 741- 



TRUE STATESMANSHIP. 



We have now reached a time (so far have we advanced 
in a sing-le g-eneration) where we can form a proper estimate 
of the statesmen who ruled this nation from 1836 to 1860. 

Even the ordinary observer of to-day, no long-er recog-nizes 
their pretensions to statesmanship. Plain, practical common- 
sense Americans who believe in a " g"overnment of the peo- 
ple, by the people, for the people," will in the future declare, 
as they do now, that true statesmanship does not enact in- 
justice INTO LAW — that that is not a democratic or repub- 
lican government, which afSrms the legal right to property 
in man, or which authorizes or permits the enslavement of 
men by fraud or force. At a time when the moral sentiment 
of mankind the world over, was practically a unit against the 
enslavement of any race, and when the imperial governments 
of Russia and Brazil were emancipating their slaves, and all 
the great nations of the world were joining hands to attempt 
the civilization of the dark continent of Africa, to the end 
that they might make slave piracy impossible, the so-called 
statesmen of this country were conspiring to destroy the 
freest and best government on earth, and making war on 
their own kindred in order that they might establish one 
or MORE petty governments whose corner-stone should be 
human slavery. 

The folly and crimes of the secession leaders and their 
allies of the North can never be repeated again ; even the 
memory of them will soon have 

" Gone glimmering through the gleam of things that were — 
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour." 

Never again shall there be witnessed in the land of 
Washington and Lincoln, the blasphemy of religious teachers 
preaching that saint and sinner alike must see to it "that 
servants obey their masters in all things because acceptable 
in the sight of the Lord," and that when escaping, it was the 
duty of the public to provide for returning slaves to their 



— 742 — 

slave-masters at the nation's expense, and, crowning- all, bj 
boldly affirming- the divinit}- of slaver}-. 

The conspirators and their apologists may write thou- 
sands of volumes in defense of their dog-ma of secession and 
state rights, and fill them with long-drawn-out logic and 
quotations from the Bible and from pretended Christian 
teachers affirming- the divinity of slavery; they may build 
monuments of marble, brass or iron to their lost cause and 
its dead leaders, and do what they may to justify or excuse 
their blunders and their crimes, and yetjthe time is coming, 
and NOW is, in which no sane man will read their writings 
except to learn from their own pens the height and depth of 
their amazing folly. And a generation of men shall not 
have passed away before all who stand in front of their monu- 
ments, will be asking themselves whether the leaders of the 
Whiskey rebellion, the schemers of the Hartford Convention 
plot, or Aaron Burr and his conspirators are not better entitled 
to commemoration, in brass or iron, than the leaders of the 
slaveholders' rebellion. 

I have not spoken personall}' of any of the leaders of the 
rebellion, because they were all the followers and satellites 
of Calhoun, from Jefferson Davis down to Senator Wigfall 
of Texas, who was dubbed by his fellow-conspirators "one 
of the most eloquent fools on the continent." 

To me there are inseparably connected with the history 
of the rebellion three men in civil life, who stand out more 
prominently than their associates — Calhoun, the great con- 
spirator ; Seward, the dreamer ; and Lincoln, the statesman. 
Calhoun, able, ambitious, logical and persistent, and as un- 
yielding as death ; Seward, the philosophical dreamer, 
political prophet and presidential aspirant, the coiner of 
beautiful and high-sounding phrases, with no practical 
ability for a crisis, such as the rebellion of 1861. When the 
hour of action and trial came, he suggested, in his speech of 
January 12th, "that we meet prejudice with conciliation, 
exaction with concessions, violence with the right hand of 
fellowship," and surrender to the rebels all the public 
property of the nation in their States, "except where the 

AUTHORITY OF THE UNITED STATES COULD BE EXERCISED 

WITHOUT WAR." To crown all, he offered to vote for an 



— 743- 

amendment to the Constitution which would preserve slaver}^ 
forever, and thus make the " irrepressible conflict " perpetual, 
so long- as a single State elected to maintain the institution 
of slavery in its borders. 

The world recognizes when it reads Mr. Lincoln's state- 
ment of the " irrepressible conflict," that he was the practical, 
just and far-seeing statesman. 

In his great speech at Springfield, Illinois, in 1858, he 
said : 

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe 
that this government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I 
do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease 
to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. 
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread 
of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its 
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike law- 
ful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as 
South." 

This great speech made Mr. Lincoln President. After 
his inauguration, he followed logically and with fidelity the 
doctrine announced in that speech. 

And when he declared in his inaug-ural address, that his 
oath and duty alike required him to see that the laws were 
impartially and honestly executed; and added: "The 

POWER CONFIDED IN ME WILL BE USED TO HOLD, OCCUPY AND 
POSSESS THE PROPERTY, AND ENFORCE THE LAWS OF THE GOV- 
ERNMENT," a practical and patriotic people knew what that 
declaration meant. They knew that Mr. Lincoln intended 

*'THAT THE HOUSE SHOULD NOT BE DIVIDED NOR FALL," but 

that the Union should be maintained forever — and be all 
one thing — all free. And to the accomplishment of that 
g-reat work he consecrated his life. 

Mr. Seward would not only have been dismissed from 
ofiS.ce by any other government, but would have been arrested 
for usurpation of power — and for holding secret and un- 
authorized communication with the public enemy. And I 
do not believe that any President who had preceded Mr. 
Lincoln would have continued Mr. Seward in his Cabinet for 
a single day, after the formal and unanimous request of the 
"Republican members of the Senate, for his removal. 



— 744 — 

It was Mr. Lincoln's hopefulness and faith in man that 
made him so long--suffering- in his dealings with Seward, 
Chase and McClellan, and hundreds of others, myself in- 
cluded. 

I think he was in that respect one of the most wonderful 
of men. I can remember two instances, one of which was 
with reference to myself; the other. Senator Schurz. Schurz 
was in the army, and was restless, as nervous men usually are, 
and fired a letter of sixteen pages over the head of his 
commander to Mr. Lincoln, an act which, as a military 
matter, was not to be tolerated. Afterward he thoug-ht better 
of it, and wrote Mr. Lincoln an apology for having" commit- 
ted this breach of military discipline. The President wrote 
him and kindly said: "Never mind; come and see me.'* 
When Schurz came and met him, he began to apologize. 

' ' Never mind, Schurz, " said Mr. Lincoln. ' ' I guess before 
we get through talking, you won't think I am so bad a man 
as some people say I am." 

Kindness, of course, captivated Mr. Schurz, just as it 
had other men. 

I went up to see him at one time about McClellan — got 
there early in the morning. He hadn't got into his room. 
When he came in he expressed some surprise at seeing me 
there so early. He hesitated a moment and said: 

"Well, General, what are you doing here so early ?" 

" I came here to see you." 

"What can I do for you ? " 

"Nothing, sir." I closed my lips as firmly as I could, 
and emphasized sharply what I said. 

"You have come up to see about McClellan ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Well," said he, " that reminds me of a story." 

I was determined to have a solid talk with him. So I 
said, rising to my feet: "Mr. President, I beg your pardon, 
but I didn't come this morning to hear a storj-." 

He looked at me and said, with such a sad face: " Ashley, 
I have great confidence in 3'ou, and great respect for you, and 
I know how sincere 3^ou are. But if I couldn't tell these 
stories, I would die. Now you sit down ! " So he ordered a 
cup of coffee and we discussed the situation. 



— 745 — 

That was the peculiar manner of the man. 

I saw him one day grant a pardon for a soldier sentenced 
to be shot. The mother of the soldier and some women of 
his household were in the room. When he did it, of course 
there was a scene. Tears came to the e3'es of many. The 
President said: "Well, I have made one family happy, but I 
don't know about the discipline of the army ! " 

That act was characteristic of the man, and because of 
his tenderness and love of justice, he held tog-ether the dis- 
cordant elements — held tog-ether the border States; and I 
think carried us to victory better than any man, certainly 
better than any public man of whom I have any knowledge. 
I don't know of any man in this country that I would rather 
have had for President, considering it now, after all is over 
for a quarter of a century, than Abraham Lincoln. 

That the historian of the future will accord the highest 
order of statesmanship to Abraham Lincoln and soldierly 
qualities to the Union Army of 1861-65, I do not doubt. 

A practical world will judge public men by what they 
accomplish, not by what they profess. Soldier and states- 
man alike must be judged by this simple standard. 

From this point of view the historian will show that 
Mr. Lincoln found the Government disrupted and bankrupt, 
with a hostile government organized by conspirators on its 
supposed ruins. He will show that Mr. Lincoln and a Union 
Congress proceeded at once to secure its political unity and 
territorial integrity; that they raised, organized and 
equipped armies and crushed the rebellion; that the}- 
amended the national Constitution prohibiting slavery for- 
ever; that they were both merciful and forgiving as con- 
querors never were before; that all laws and constitutional 
amendments were impartial in their character, and operated 
on the North and South alike. He will show that under 
their State governments, as reorganized by them, the South 
has prospered and increased in wealth as never before; that 
the census of 1890 confirmed all we hoped and promised when 
we declared that her increase in cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, 
iron and manufactures would more than double in value 
between 1860 and 1890, and that her plantation and city 
property would be increased in value threefold; and that a 



— 746 — 

National Government, with amnesty and impartial suffrage, 
found a complete vindication, both at home and abroad. 
And knowing" this, as each Union soldier and Union citizen 
who took part in the great drama of 1861 " folds the drapery 
of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams," 
he will know that his sacrifices have not been in vain. 

There are men before me to-night who bore aloft and 
followed that flag at Shi^loh and Stone River, at Murfrees- 
boro, Missionary Ridge and Nashville, and from Cliicka- 
mauga to Chattanooga and to the top of Lookout Mountain, 
and from Atlanta through Georgia on to Washington, as 
they carried it in triumph back to their homes prior to plac- 
ing it here within the shrine of Memorial Hall. And because 
it has been riddled by shot and shell and has been baptized 
with the blood of the living and the dead, it is all the more 
sacred to us. 

Mr. President, that flag means more to you and to me 
to-night than ever it did before. 

To us, as Americans, and to ever}- civilized people be- 
neath the sun, it symbolizes the unit}' and strength of the 
greatest and freest commonwealth on earth. It means in- 
vincible power and enlightened progress. It means hope 
and happiness to all the coming generations of men enti- 
tled to its protection. It means that never again, on the land 
or on the sea, can it be a flag of " stripes" to an}- of God's 
children, however poor or however black. It means the 
sovereignty of an indissoluble Union — and a prophecy of the 
coming continental republic. 



ADDRESS 



OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, 



At the Fourth Annuai. Banquet of the Ohio Republican 

League, held at Memorial Hall, Toledo, Ohio, 

February 12, 189L 



Toastmaster : Gen. Wm. H. Gibson, Tiffin, Ohio. 
First Toast : 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 

"How humble, yet how hopeful he could be; 
How in g*ood fortune and in ill the same ; 
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he. 
Thirsty for g"old, nor feverish for fame." 

Tom Taylor in "London Punch.' 
Response by 

Hon. J. M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio. 



Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : At Alton, 
Illinois, in October, 1858, I first met Abraham Lincoln. It 
was on the day he closed the historic joint debate of that 
year, with Stephen A. Douglas. 

My anxiety to see and hear the man whose great speech 
at Springfield in June had electrified the entire country was 
so intense that immediately after our election in Ohio I ran 
down over the Wabash, and saw and heard Mr. Lincoln and 
Mr. Douglas in their closing debate at Alton. 

I returned home at once, so as to be present and celebrate 
my first election to Congress. 

(747) 



— 748 — 

I had accepted an Invitation from the Republican Com- 
mittee of Illinois to accompany Governor Chase and speak at 
several points in that State and remain until the close of the 
campaig-n in November. 

The plan for the Illinois campaig-n was discussed and 
ag-reed upon at the Tremont House in Chicag-o. Here we 
met John Yv^entworth, Elihu B. "Washburn, Owen Lovejoy 
and Joseph Medill (then as now, editor of the Chicag-o 
Tribune) and many others. 

This was a memorable meeting*, and from the date of 
that campaign, Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency 
in 1860 became a probability. 

I gave this meeting an enthusiastic account of the debate 
at Alton, and when I stated that although the election 
for members of the legislature might not result in the choice 
of Mr. Lincoln as Senator, yet his speeches had made it 
impossible for Mr, Douglas to be elected President, and that 
a great leader had arisen, I commanded the attention of eager 
listeners. 

Mr. Lincoln came to Ohio in the fall of 1859 to take part 
in the gubernatorial campaign, and delivered memorable 
speeches at Columbus and Cincinnati. Under the leadership 
of Judge Swayne a distinct Lincoln party arose in Ohio, 
which in a few months became a great factor in Mr. Lincoln's 
nomination for the Presidency in 1860. 

NORTHERN PRO-SLAVERY CHAMPIONS. 

From 1844 until 1861 the slave barons were so entrenched 
in the government that the}- demanded as a condition to the 
political recognition of an}^ Northern leader that they 
publicly commit themselves b}^ deeds as well as words to their 
service. They demanded that all Northern aspirants to the 
Presidency should, in addition to their general subservienc}', 
give undoubted evidence of their fidelity and fitness for so 
exalted a position, by causing to be captured and returned to 
the South, any fugitive slaves who might be found in the 
cities of their residence. 

Whereupon, the partisans of Fillmore (then the acting 
President), who after approving the fugitive-slave bill was in- 



— 749- 

trlg-uing- for the AVhig- presidential nomination in 1852, 
caused the officials of Fillmore's own appointment, to seize at 
his home in Buiialo, and return a fug"itive slave in order that 
the slave barons mig-ht know that their recently enacted 
slave-catching- law, could be executed in the city of Fillmore's 
residence, and so executed, that they could be eye-witnesses 
to the subserviency of their allies, who everywhere in that day 
abounded throug-hout the North. The manner in which that 
disgraceful act was performed at Buffalo was so shocking" in its 
brutality, that after Fillmore's retirement from the Presi- 
dency, he drifted into obscurity and died unwept and un- 
lamented. 

"Webster's friends in Boston joined with alacrity in send- 
ing- Sims back to slavery, hoping" by this shameful act of 
abasement, to commend their great political idol to the slave 
barons for President. He did not get a sing-le vote from them 
in the nominating convention, and soon afterwards retired 
to his home in Marshfield and saw, as did Belshazzar of old, 
the handwriting on the wall. Wherever he turned his eyes 
there appeared the sentence of doom, as out of the darkness 
came the hand with index finger pointing to the words, 
" The 7th of March." 

Mr. Webster died a disappointed and humiliated man, 
with the personal knowledge that the slave barons could be 
as exacting and false to him, as to one of their own bondmen. 

The pulpit was but little, if any, behind in its base sub- 
serviency. A fire-bell at night could not empty a fashion- 
able church in Boston or New York quicker than it would 
then have been emptied, if its parson had honestly prayed or 
preached for the liberation of the slave. So debasing and 
brutal was this infernal spirit, that the Rev. Dr. Dewey, of 
Boston, publicly declared "that if the Constitution required 
it, he would send his own mother back into slavery." And 
yet, this self-righteous worshiper of Mammon and the Consti- 
tution claimed to be an American citizen and a descendant of 
the Puritans ! 

After such a statement of our moral condition as a nation, 
you will not be surprised when I tell you that this reverend 
individual was but an exaggerated type of a whole genera- 
tion of vipers, who, in 1861, rolled up their eyes in holy hor- 



— 750 — 

ror and demanded peace at any price and our absolute sub- 
mission to the terms of the slave barons; everywhere crying" 
out: "Give us the Constitution as it is, and the Union as it 
was." And manj^ so-called statesmen in the North lifted up 
their voices in chorus and wept and said — Amen. 

MR. LINCOLN AS HS APPEARED ON THE PLAINS OP ILLINOIS. 

I present you this dark and sad picture, in order that I 
may show 3'ou more distinctly, the colossal form and plain 
but manly face of Abraham Lincoln. Behold him, as at the 
tomb of the martyred Lovejoy and on the plains of Illinois, 
he emerges unheralded from the shadow of this national 
degradation and national dishonor, and with the words of 
truth and soberness on his lips, proclaims: " A house divided 
against itself cannot stand." "I believe this government 
cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free." That 
was the kc3'note which touched the hearts and anointed the 
eyes of millions. It was in that dark hour the fitly spoken 
word, and like an eternal ray of light it illuminated the dim 
and shadowy future. 

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATES. 

In this spirit, and on this elevated moral plane, Mr. Lin- 
coln met Mr. Douglas and conducted his great campaign in 
Illinois, and successfully drove him from every controverted 
position. Subsequently, in his desperation, Mr. Douglas 
declared "that he did not care whether slavery was voted up 
or voted down." 

Mr. Lincoln did care, the great heart of the nation cared, 
every honest man in the world cared whether slavery was 
voted up or down. And when I heard Mr. Lincoln proclaim 
at Alton " that it was a question between right and wrong," 
his face glowed as if tinged with a halo, and to me he looked 
the prophet of hope and joy, when with dignity and empha- 
sis he said: " That is the real issue. That is the issue that 
will continue in this country when these poor tongues of 
Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal 



— 751 — 

strug"g"le between these two principles, rig-ht and wrong-, 
throughout the world. They are the two principles that 
have stood face to face from the beg-inning- of time, and will 
ever continue to struggle, until the common right of human- 
ity shall ultimately triumph." 

The tongues of these two great men have been silent for a 
quarter of a century. The one who did care " whethe^ 
slavery was voted up or voted down " will live in the grateful 
remembrance of his countrymen and mankind; while he who 
declared "that he did not care" will only be remembered as 
the man whom Abraham Lincoln defeated for President. 



RESULT OP THH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN 1860. 

Two years after his defeat for Senator, Mr. Lincoln was 
nominated and elected President, receiving ISO electoral votes 
and Judge Douglas but 13 electoral votes. Breckenridge of 
Kentucky received 72 votes, and Bell of Tennessee 39 votes. 

If Mr. Lincoln had not received a majority of all the 
electoral votes cast, the choice of a President would, as pro- 
vided by that indefensible and anti-democratic provision of 
our Constitution, have devolved on the House of Representa- 
tives, each State having one vote (except where the Con- 
gressional delegation was equall}- divided), in which event 
its vote would be lost. The choice of a President at that 
time by the House would have been limited to either Lincoln, 
Breckenridge or Bell. The conspirators put Breckenridge 
electoral tickets in the Northern States with the deliberate 
purpose of excluding Douglas from the three highest, and 
thus keeping him out of the contest in the House. 

An election by the House of Representatives of a Presi- 
dent for 1860-1861 was part of the original programme of 
the conspirators when they deliberately divided the Demo- 
cratic party at Charleston and Baltimore and determined to 
defeat Douglas. Nothing is more certain, had that election 
gone into the House of Representatives, than that Mr. Lin- 
coln would not have been chosen President, as the Republi- 
cans could not have commanded the votes of a sufficient num- 
ber of States to elect him. 



— 752 — 

With Mr. Buchanan in the President's office, to obey the 
orders of the conspirators until they had accomplished their 
purpose, the result would have been a so-called compromise 
and the election of Breckinridge. 

In the light of all that has happened, no mortal man can 
€ven now presage what would have been the ultimate result, 
had Breckinridge at that time been clothed with the power 
of the presidential office. 

That this country would have become a consolidated 
slave empire during the administration of Breckinridge is 
more than probable. The pro-slavery amendment to our 
national Constitution, which was submitted by the Northern 
compromisers of the Thirty-sixth Congress (and ratified by the 
vote of Ohio), would have been engrafted into the national 
Constitution, and slavery thus entrenched could not have 
been abolished except by the consent of every State, thus 
practically making slavery constitutional and perpetual, 
with no remedy for its abolition but armed revolution. 
Fortunately for the future of the republic, Mr. Lincoln's 
election defeated this deeply laid plot of the pro-slavery con- 
spirators, and their subsequent mad rebellion and war on the 
Union enabled him and the national Congress to abolish 
slavery and make the nation ali« free instead of all 
SLAVE. 

From the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration until the 
tragic close of his eventful life, no one who did not know and 
often see him, can portra}^ the tremendous mental and physi- 
cal strain under which he labored, nor can human tongue 
describe the innumerable petty annoyances to which he was 
subjected, nor the intrigues and conspiracies which he en- 
countered and mastered. 



MR. LINCOLN AND THE RADICAL WING OP THE REPUBLICAN 

PARTY. 

While Mr. Lincoln was, beyond all question, as deepl}" 
impressed with the necessit}' of saving the Union as any one 
of the great men with whom I served, there were often radi- 
cal differences of opinion as to the best means to be adopted 



— 753 — 

to that end. This was in larg-e part the result of early 
political training", and political affiliation of the men who 
were leaders in the Republican party. 

The advanced or radical wing- of the Republican party 
was made up larg"ely of men who had been the recog^nized 
leaders of the anti-slavery wing- of the Democratic party. 
Such men as Rantoul, Sumner and Boutwell, of Massachusetts; 
Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine; Hale, of New Hampshire; David 
AVilmot, of Pennsylvania; General Dix and Governor Fenton, 
of New York; Chase and others in Ohio; Julian, of Indiana; 
Trumbull, of Illinois; Doolittle, of Wisconsin; Bing-ham and 
Beaman, of Michig-an; Frank P. Blair and Gratz Brown, of 
Missouri, and many others whom I need not name. 

These men were all trained in the school of Jefferson, 
and our personal and political affiliations had been with the 
anti-slavery wing- of the Democratic party. 

Mr. Lincoln had been trained in the old Whig- party, and 
Henry Clay, its g-reat compromising- chief , was his early politi- 
cal leader, and he voted for General Scott for President in 
1852, notwithstanding- the platform on the subject of slavery. 
I voted that year for Hale and Julian, because of the offensive 
Democratic platform, which was no more objectionable than 
that of the Whig-s. 

I have not read either of those platforms since 1852, but 
if young students of political history will g-o into any library 
and read them they will be found practically duplicates, and 
so subservient to the slave barons, as to make the cheek of 
every true American blush with shame to-day. 

When Mr. Lincoln came into the Presidency he had not 
advanced as far beyond the old party platforms as Sumner 
and Chase, Hale and Vf ilmot, and the men who had crossed 
the Rubicon and voted for Hale and Julian in 1852. But 
within two years he was abreast of them, and before the close 
of his life they recog-nized him as their leader. 

What wonder, then, that at the outset our differences 
with Mr. Lincoln should have been marked and pronounced 
on some of the most important questions which confronted 
us ? 

We were disappointed, to beg-in with, in the make-up 
48 



— 754 — 

of his Cabinet. I wanted Fessenden of Maine, or Collamer 
of Vermont, for Secretary of State, Governor Morgan of New 
York or Zack Chandler of Michigan, for Secretary of the 
Treasury, Edwin M. Stanton of Ohio, for Secretary of War, 
Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, for Secretar}' of the Nav}-, 
George W. Summers of West Virginia, for Secretary of the 
Interior, James Speed of Kentuck}^ Postmaster-General, 
and Edmund Bates of Missouri, for Attorney General. 

These men were all old line Whigs, except Mr. Stanton, 
and not one of the border slave States had voted for Mr. Lin- 
coln. I proposed, as a matter of expedienc}', to strengthen 
the Union sentiment in the border slave States by loading 
their conservative Union Whig leaders with the honors and 
patronage of the government. And then, I did not think it 
expedient to take Seward or Chase or Cameron out of the 
Senate. 

Instead of 75,000 men for three months, I wanted the call 
issued for 500,000 men for the war. Instead of committing 
ourselves in any way on the question of slavery and the status 
of slaves, we thought that the proclamation should simply 
promise that all persons who were loyal to the government 
and gave it their support should receive the protection of the 
government. I wanted the war to be conducted strictly 
according to the laws of war, and the army to be moved not 
in conformity with party platforms or the decree of any court, 
which might be presided over by some timid or disloyal 
judge. L I wanted the writ of habeas corpus suspended wher- 
ever, within the jurisdiction of the United States, the local 
police authorities could not enforce the law, and the public 
safety required it. In short, I wanted the war conducted as 
if we were in earnest, and determined to preserve the Union 
at whatever cost; and I believed then, as we all believe now, 
that the only wa}^ at that time to secure an enduring peace 
was to destroy the slave power and make such a rebellion 
forever impossible in the future. 

The entire radical wing of the party were opposed to the 
authority which Mr. Lincoln assumed to reorganize the rebel 
State governments. Our discussions on this subject were 
often set and sharp. We finall}' told him that if he 
attempted to carr}- out his programme without the consent 



— 755 — 

or approval of Congress, that the House of Representatives 
would refuse to count the electoral votes even if they should 
be cast for him by Tennessee and Louisiana, and we did so 
refuse to permit their votes to be counte:!. 

And yet, throug"h all these earnest discussions, sometimes 
waxing" warm, as they of necessity did, there never was any 
estrang^ement between us, nor an unkind act to be recalled or 
regfretted. 



MR. Lincoln's mental constitution. 

There was in Mr. Lincoln's mental constitution a mar- 
velous blending- of sunshine and shadow, of earnestness and 
innocent fun, of profound thought and delightful humor, of 
hopeful prophecy and inexorable log-ic. 

In estimating- the mental and moral qualities of any man 
of mark, it is due to him, not less than to ourselves, that we 
form a rational judg-ment by a careful analysis of all the 
peculiar traits and moods which g-o so largely to make up the 
life and character of every such man. 

This analysis I made for myself when Mr. Lincoln was. 
President, and while I shall express freely and frankly my 
deliberately formed opinion of Mr. Lincoln's character, I will 
be warranted in presenting a few of his striking utterances 
and well-authenticated acts, so that you may form an inde- 
pendent opinion for yourselves. 

Before such an assembly and on an occasion like this, I 
may properly relate two or three occurrences which will illus- 
trate the masterly manner in which he managed all kind?, 
and conditions of men. 



THE WAY MR. LINCOLN MANAGED MR. GREELEY. 

During the war the number of volunteer peace negotia- 
tors who made pilgrimages to Washington, and occupied the 
time of Mr. Lincoln and members of Congress, were legion. 

This brigade of budding Talleyrands was made up largely 
of peace cranks. Confederate sympathizers, gentlemen ambi- 
tious of distinguishing themselves by playing the role of 



— 756 — 

mediators, and all sorts and conditions of political schemers, 
who kept the President and all public men in Washing-ton 
who would listen to them, awake at night, as they poured into 
their unwilling cars their visionary schemes. 

It was a time for fighting and supplying the sinews of 
war to our armies, and not for the game of diplomacy-, except 
so far as such diplomacy tended to support armies in the 
field and maintain peace abroad, until treason was destroyed 
at home. 

We were particularly anxious that no act should be done 
by the President which, by any possibility, could be distorted 
by European nations into a recognition of the Confederate 
Government. 

Mr. Greeley was one of those who had worried the 
President by insisting- on opening negotiations with the Con- 
federate Commissioners at Niagara Falls, with the view of 
securing an early peace. 

The world and Mr. Greeley were alike surprised one 
morning" by the public announcement that the President had 
authorized Mr. Greeley to proceed to Niagara Falls and see 
what he could do as an apostle of peace. This was a "com- 
mission " which Mr. Greeley did not expect and had not 
sought. But, after all he had said and written, he could not 
very well decline it. Everybody was up in arms against in- 
trusting any one with such a mission, and of all other men 
the guileless philosopher of the Tribune. Of course, I v/as 
among the first at the White* House to protest. Mr. 
Lincoln explained to me why he did it, and added, "Don't 
3-0U worry; nothing will come of it," and there did not. 
Mr. Greelcj' accomplished nothing, and was supremely dis- 
gusted with himself for what he 'had said and done in the 
matter of peace negotiations at Niagara Falls, and never 
again troubled the President in that direction. 

This humorous stroke of diplomacy on the part of 
Mr. Lincoln nipped in the bud the ambitious schemes of 
scores of would-be negotiators, and gave him and all public 
men at Washington comparative peace from their impor- 
tunities. 



— /o/ — 



Julian's story of lovejoy and stanton. 

Mr. Lincoln's manner of dealing- with men of fiery 
temperaments is well illustrated in a story told by Hon. 
Georg-e W. Julian, of Indiana, in a magazine article some 
four or five years ago. Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, at the head 
of some self-appointed committee, had called on the Presi- 
dent, and after explaining the scheme v^^hich they had in 
hand, looking to an increase in the efficiency of the Western 
soldiers, procured an order from Mr. Lincoln on the Secretary 
of War for its execution. Lovejoy a.nd his committee 
repaired at once to the War Department, and after explaining" 
the matter, Mr. Stanton peremptorily refused to comply 
with it. "But," said the impulsive Lovejoy, "we have the 
President's order here with us, sir." " Did Lincoln g-ive you 
an order of that kind?" roared the irate Secretary. "He 
did, sir," answered Lovejoy. "Then he is a damned fool," 
said the fiery Stanton. " Do you mean to say that the Presi- 
dent is a damned fool ?" asked the bewildered Lovejoy. 
"Yes," again roared the Secretary, "if he gave you such 
an order as that." The amazed Congressman and his com- 
mittee immediately returned to the White House and reported 
in full the result of their visit. 

"Did Stanton say I was a damned fool?" asked the 
President, and Lovejoy and his committee joined in affirming- 
that he did. After a moment or two, the President said, 
"Well, g-entlemen, if Stanton said I was a damned fool, 
there must be something- wrong- about this, for Stanton is 
nearly always right. I must see the Secretary about it before 
anything- can be done." Only a g-reat man could have so 
borne himself. 

NASBY quoted on ASHLEY. 

On no one subject did we disagree with Mr. Lincoln so 
radically as that of reconstruction. It was a subject ever 
present with me, from the day I laid before my committee the 
first reconstruction bill which I prepared and had ready for 
presentation on the meeting of the extra session of Congress, 
in July, 1S61. 



— 758 — 

I assumed from the first that we should put down the 
rebellion, and that the question of questions would be the 
reorganization of constitutional g-overnments in the seceded 
States, as a condition to their representation in Congress. 

Had Mr. Lincoln lived, I believe he would eventually 
have adopted the views held by a majority of the Republicans 
in Congress. 

After an unusually long and warm discussion one morn- 
ing on this subject, I rose to go, quite dissatisfied with the 
result of my interview and exhibiting a little more feeling 
than I ought, when the President called out, and said: 
"Ashley, that was a great speech you made out in Ohio the 
other day." I turned, and, I fear with some irritation in both 
manner and voice, said: "I have made no speech anj-where, 
Mr. President, and have not been out of Washington." He 
laughed and said: "Well, I see Nasb}' sa3^s that in conse- 
quence of one speech made by Jim Ashley, four hundred 
thousand niggers moved into Wood County last week, and it 
must have taken a great speech to do that." Of course I 
joined in the laugh, and then Mr. Lincoln, in his kindly 
manner, said: "Come up soon, Ashle}^ and we will take up 
reconstruction again." 

By the gentlest of methods, this great leader held to- 
gether all the discordant elements in the Republican party, 
both in Congress and the country. 

JUDGE HOLMAN's TESTIMONY. 

I could relate from personal knowledge incidents which, 
would illustrate his unaffected simplicity and tenderness. 
But instead of telling one of ni}' ovvn I will relate one that 
is fresher to me, and may be to 3'ou. I read it on the cars 
while on my way home. It was told only a da}^ or two ago 
by Judge Holman, of Indiana, long a leading Democratic 
member of Congress, and one of the best men with whom I 
served. This is his testimony: 

"I can see how Lincoln erred on the side of humanity. 
His nature was essentially humane. That was the charm of 
his character. But he was an able man, too. You ask me 
if I have not seen a good manv men like Lincoln in southern 



— 759 — 

Indiana and Illinois. I at first thoug-ht I should say yes, 
that I knew four or five, but not one of these, thoug-h he may 
have had a superficial resemblance to Lincoln, had anything" 
of Lincoln's reality. He was such a plain person that people 
often misconceived hira and thought him to be artful. He 
was polite, but his plainness was also a g-enuine endowment. 
I recall when I went to see him about a bo}^ the son of a post- 
master, who had opened a letter, and in it v/as some money and 
he took the money. His parents were overwhelmed with shame 
and sorrow, for the boy had never done anything* wrong- before. 
Judge Sweet of our State sent by me to Mr. Lincoln an ap- 
peal for the boy's pardon. It seems that under the war pres- 
sure they had been in the habit in that post-office of opening- 
the mails to see what the rebels on the Kentucky shore were 
about. The boy had seen them open the letters of other peo- 
ple, and the example had infected him, and this letter having" 
some money in it he took the money from f rig-ht or from some 
other reason. I went to Mr. Lincoln, and he said: 'Sweet 
is an awful rebel, but Sweet is an honest man if there ever 
was one. I know his handwriting". He is a bad rebel, but 
he won't tell a lie. If Sweet says that this boy ought to be 
pardoned, I reckon it will have to be so.' So he pardoned 
the boy. Now, a man from my part of the world could under- 
stand that to be natural and not artful. Lincoln was able, 
shrewd, but above all tender." 

THE WADE AND DAVIS MANIFESTO. 

The first time I called at the White House, after Senator 
Wade and Henry Winter Davis issued their celebrated mani- 
festo ag"ainst Mr. Lincoln, the President, as he advanced to 
take my hand, said: " Ashley, I am g"lad to see by the papers 
that you refused to sig^n the Wade and Davis manifesto." 
"Yes, Mr. President," I answered, "I could not do that,'* 
and added, for 

" Close as sin and suffering" joined 
We march to fate abreast." 

It was a picture as we thus stood, my lips quivering" with 
emotion, while tears stood in the eyes of both. 

On many occasions during the darkest hours of our 
g-reat conflict, men who were in accord were often in such 
close touch with each other, that each could feel the pulse- 
beat of the other's heart. 



— 760 — 

This incident tells its own story. Mr. Lincoln regarded 
both Mr. Wade and Mr. Davis as able and honest men, and 
he knew they were my warm personal friends. He also knew 
that nothing- but a sense of public duty could have separated 
me from them. No one regretted their mistake more than I 
did ; and, knowing- my close relations to them, Mr. Lincoln 
did not hesitate to speak to me of their mistake in the 
kindest spirit. 



THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

Eig"hteen hundred and sixty-two was like 1890, an off 
year for Republicans. After my election in 1862, I was 
invited by teleg-raph to come to Washing-ton. When I called 
on the President, he cong-ratulated me on my triumph, and 
said: "How did you do it?" I answered, "It was 3'our 
emancipation proclamation, Mr. President, that did it." In 
a few moments he said, "Well, how do you like the procla- 
mation?" I answered that I liked it as far as it went, and 
added, "but, Mr. President, if I had been Commander-in- 
Chief, I should not have g-iven the enemy one hundred days* 
notice of my purpose to strike him, at the expiration of that 
time, in his most vulnerable point, nor would I have offered 
any apolog-y for doing- so great and noble an act." He 
laughed and enjoyed my hit, and after a moment's pause 
said, "Ashley, that's a centre shot." 



MR. LINCOLN AT HAMPTON ROADS. 

No one event during the entire War of the Rebellion 
alarmed us so much as the meeting at Hampton Roads, be- 
tween Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and Judge 
Campbell, formerly of our United States Supreme Court, and 
the President and Mr. Seward. 

The night I learned that "Blair's scheme," as it was 
called, was about to be attempted, I went to the White House 
and protested against it. When it became known that Mr. 
Seward had actuall}- gone down to Hampton Roads alone, 
every loyal man in Washington was white with indignation, 



— 761 — 

and the demand was made that the President should go 
down at once unless Mr. Seward was recalled. Mr. Lincoln 
went down, 'and ag^ain nothing- was done. Mr. Lincoln suc- 
cessfully handled the wily Confederate Commissioners at this 
meeting- — put them thoroughly in the wrong, and so de- 
feated their last desperate effort to extricate themselves from 
the fate that all men of judgment then knew to be inevitable, 
if the Union men of the nation but did their duty. 

Before Mr. Lincoln started for Hampton Roads he said 
to a friend of mine "that nothing would come of it," and 
when he returned to Washington we knew that the end of 
the Confederacy was near, and that the Union was to remain 
unbroken. 

Constitutionally cautious, and by political training a 
conservative, Mr. Lincoln nevertheless kept abreast of pub- 
lic opinion, and in his last annual message to Congress an- 
nounced with a clearness of statement which could not be 
misinterpreted, and with an impressiveness befitting- the 
dignity of his great office, that — 

"In presenting- the abandonment of armed resistance to 
national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only 
indispensable condition to ending- the war on the part of the 
government, I retract nothing- heretofore said as to slavery. 
I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that while I remain 
in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or 
modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to 
slavery any person who is free by the terms of that procla- 
mation or by any of the acts of Congress. 

"If the people should, by whatever mode or means, 
make it an executive duty tore-enslave such persons, another, 
and not I, must be the instrument to perform it." 



GREAT EVENTS DEVELOP GREAT MEN. 

Seldom in the history of mankind have great men pro- 
duced great events. It is great events which develop great 
men. But for the rebellion our matchless generals, Grant 
and Thomas, Sherman and Sheridan, would have been un- 
known in history as great soldiers, and not one nor all of 
them could have produced such a rebellion. But for that 
attempted revolution, scores of men in civil life who will 



— 762 — 

appear in history as among- our leading* statesmen, would in 
all probabilit}- have been unknown in the councils of the 
republic ; thej would have passed their lives in domestic or 
business pursuits, had not the opportunit;,- been g-iven them 
of service in the great conflict for saving the nation's life. 
And Mr. Lincoln himself had not that kind of leadership, 
which could conspire and plot and surround himself with 
followers to inaug-urate a revolution. He was pre-eminently 
fitted by nature to be the representative of law and order, to 
group and bind tog-ether all citizens of the republic who 
were desirous of peace and union, and to preserve libert}'- and 
constitutional government. As an historical figure he was, 
in fact, a product of the great anti-slavery revolution of 
which he became the recognized leader. But for the slave 
barons' rebellion it might never have been his lot 

"The applause of listening senates to command; 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise; 
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land. 
And read his history in a nation's eyes." 

MR. LINCOLN AS EXECUTIVE, DIPLOZMAT AND MILITARY COM- 
MANDER. 

Mr. President : It was my privilege in boyhood and 
early manhood to meet and to know a number of the able 
statesmen of this countr}^ v/ho were in power prior to the 
War of the Rebellion. 

During my service in Congress I came to know more inti- 
mately the men who were in public life during the Presidency 
of Mr. Lincoln, and I often compared them with the idols of 
my boyhood. I need not tell you that I am better able now 
to judge character than I was then, and to compare them 
with Mr. Lincoln. 

As an executive, charged v/ith the care and responsi- 
bility of a great government during the War of the Rebel- 
lion, and with the organization and direction of great 
armies, he was, as I estimate men, an abler and safer Presi- 
dent than Webster or Clay, or Chase or Seward would have 



— 763 — 

been under like conditions and surrounded bj like environ- 
ments. 

As a diplomat, he was the superior of Talleyrand, for 
without duplicity or falsehood he molded, and conquered 
with truth as his weapon and candor for his defensive armor. 

As a military strateg-ist and commander, he was the 
equal, if not the superior, of his great g^enerals. 

As a man he was merciful and just and absolutely with- 
out pride or arrogance ; and to crown all, there was an atmos- 
phere surrounding- his daily life, which made friendships that 
last beyond the grave. 

" He was a man, take him for all in all, 
I shall not look upon his like again." 

JACKSON ON HORSEBACK AND I.INCOI.N ON FOOT. 

During the last half of the first century of the republic 
two men filled the presidential office whose personality stands 
out pre-eminently conspicuous above those who immediately 
preceded or followed them in that office. Every one who 
hears me will know to whom I refer before I can pronounce 
the names of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. 

Both Southern born, they were unquestionably the two 
most striking figures of their day and generation. And yet 
how unlike. 

As I read history, Andrew Jackson was the first of our 
Presidents who appeared booted and spurred and on horse- 
back; and though his term of office was in a time of profound 
peace, he ruled his country and his party with an iron hand 
and the autocratic will of a crowned king. 

Abraham Lincoln came into the Presidency on the eve 
of the greatest rebellion in history, and though Commander- 
in-Chief of the mightiest army then in the world, and practi- 
cally clothed with unlimited power, he did not magnify him- 
self nor attempt to rule with military rigor either his coun- 
try or his party. 

On the contrary, he sought to know the wall of his coun- 
trymen with no thought of party or self. He sought to know 
their will so that he might administer the government as the 



— 764 — 

g-eneral judg-ment of the nation should indicate, but, never- 
theless, in accord with the prompting-s of his own gfreat 
heart, which demanded that it should be administered in 
justice and mercy, "with charity for all and malice towards 
none." 

The thoug"ht that dominated him was his earnest desire 
to conform his acts to the considerate judgment of all loj-al 
men, and thus be able the better to discharge the duties of 
his great office, preserve the government unimpaired, and 
secure its perpetual unity and peace by enacting into consti- 
tutional law, the legitimate results of the war. 

For a moment let there pass in review before your mind's 
eye the picture of Andrew Jackson as President entering 
Richmond after the close of the great rebellion (especially if 
Calhoun had been at the head of the defeated Confederate 
government), and then recall the manner in which every one 
knows that Abraham Lincoln entered it. 

There can be no doubt that Jackson would have entered 
it duly heralded and on horseback, amid the booming of can- 
non, the waving of banners, and surrounded by his victorious 
army, marching to the music of fife and drum. 

Those who have read of Jackson's imperious will and 
fiery temper know, that the conquered would have been made 
to feel and remember the iron hand and iron will of the con- 
queror. 

You all remember how Mr. Lincoln entered Richmond, 
on foot, unheralded and practically unattended. He thus 
entered the capital of the late Confederate government to 
teach the South and the nation a needed lesson — the lesson 
of mercy and forgiveness. 

If he could, he would have entered Richmond bearing 
aloft the nation's banner " unstained by human blood." As 
he walked up the silent and deserted streets of Richmond the 
colored people were the only ones to meet him, and they gave 
their great deliverer a timid, quiet and undemonstrative wel- 
come by standing on each side of the streets through which 
he passed with uncovered heads. During his walk of nearly 
two miles the colored children, after a time, drew nearer to 
him, and at last a little girl came so close that he took the 
child by the hand and spoke kindly to it, obeying the injunc- 



— 765 — 

tion of that simple and sublime utterance, which touches all 
human hearts: "Suffer little children to come unto me and 
forbid them not." 

As I look back and recall many of the wonderful acts of 
this wonderful man, this was, to me, one among- the most 
impressive and touching-, and to-nig-ht presents to my mind 
a picture of moral grandeur, such as the world never before 
looked upon, a scene such as the future can only witness 
when like causes reproduce such an occasion — and such a 
man. 



"Ah, if in coming- times 
Some g-iant evil arise, 
And honor falter and pale, 
His v/ere a name to conjure with! 
God send his like ag-ain!" 

As the colossal fig-ure of Lincoln casts its shadow down 
the centuries, it will be a g-uide to all coming- generations 
of Americans, inspiring, as it did, with courage and hope 
all loyal men during the darkest hours of the great struggle 
for our national life, when he — 

"Faithful stood with prophet finger 
Pointing toward the blessed to be. 
When beneath the spread of Heaven 
Every creature shall be free. 

''Fearless when the lips of evil 
Breathed their blackness on his name, 
Trusting in a noble life time 
For a spotless after fame." 

And his contemporaries, while they live, and his countr}-- 
men for all time, will cherish the thought, that neither time 
nor distance, nor things present, nor things to come, can dim 
the halo which surrounds and glorifies the unselfish and 
manly life of Abraham Lincoln. 




Letter from Hon. Isaiah T. Montg-omery, Mound Bayou, Miss. 
The art of g-overnment is one of the first necessities of 
mankind, and the pages of history testifj- to the rise and fall 
of empires, which facts attest their imperfection in the science 
of g-overnment. 

And though American civilization has reached an exalted 
plane of development, our frequent periods of turmoil and 
evident strain in the administration of State and National 
Governments, should serve as a timel.v warning to be heeded, 
ere our great republic shall become involved in the common 
ruin that has befallen so many of its predecessors. 

All democratic governments should be subject to the con- 
ISAIAH T. MONTGOMERY, trol of the human intellect. 

It ought not to be expected that the founders of this republic should have at- 
tained perfection, especially when we consider the imperfect lights before them, and 
the common distrust then prevailing in the most enlightened minds, as to the capacity 
of the untrained masses of men for the safe depository of individual sovereignty. 

The subject of improving and perfecting our S3-stem of free democratic govern- 
ment, so lucidlj' treated by the author of this address, is sufficient to arrest the atten- 
tion of every patriot, and command the earnest thought of every statesman, irrespec- 
tive of party affiliations. 

Experience in the affairs of our Government, whether State or National, has clearly 
demonstrated the tremendous power of party machine managers, backed by party or- 
ganizations, whose chief aim is the control of the patronage and emoluments of gov- 
ernment. That it forces upon the people a continual and often unsuccessful struggle 
to preserve the purity of their institutions, is well known. A continuation of these con- 
ditions, which are becoming more steadily intensified by the rapid increase of popula- 
tion, ought to be sufficient to suggest to all thinking minds, the conclusion that we are 
rapidly approaching a point beyond which our present system will prove inadequate to 
bear the strain. 

We are already witnessing efforts to nurify the body politic, in the discussion of 
the propositions to nominate and to elect U. S. Senators bj- a direct vote of the people, 
of lengthening the presidential term to six years, and providing that the incumbent 
shall be nominated and elected by a direct vote, and be ineligible to a re-election. 
There is also a continual dread of a clash between State and National authorities, and 
a consequent jealousy on the part of the States, of any enlargement of the powers of 
the National Government. 

Within the States there is a growing distrust of the convention system, and in 
many instances recourse is being had to primary elections. The new constitution of 
this State (Mississippi) makes it encumbent upon the legislature to enact such laws as 
■will insure fairness in conducting this class of elections. 

It seems to me that the system proposed in this address ought to prove particularly 
acceptable, because it clearly enlarges the powers of the people, appealing directly to 
their intelligence and patriotism for pure government, and guaranteeing absolute uni- 
formity in the action of the States pertaining- to national elections, without necessitat- 
ing national supervision. 

The feature that proposes to equalize the powers of electors and secure to minori- 
ties the right or privilege of representation, is the sine qua non of free democratic 
government; being vastly superior to the cumbersome methods now in vogue, through 
which an unchallenged majority, in order to strengthen its lease of power, sometimes 
stoops to deeds of tj-ranny as violative of the principles of justice as the baleful edicts 
of a crowned autocrat. 

Governor Ashley's plan contemplates direct and untrammeled action by the indi- 
vidual voter, and the creation of a carefully selected bodj' of citizens in each Stat« to 
act for them during any interim. This plan ought to commend itself to a people who 
have been prepared by a century and a quarter of varied experience, for the highest 
enjoyment of free government. Isaiah T. Montgomekv. 



ADDRESS 

BY HON. J. M. ASHLEY, 

Bkfore thk Ohio Society ob' New York, Monday Even- 
ing, November 9th, 1891. 



THE IMPENDING POLITICAL EPOCH. 



**The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers' days were best." 

— James Russell Lowell. 



"As the fatal dogma of secession, was buried in a com- 
mon grave with the great rebellion, it is fitting and proper 
that the national Constitution should be so amended, as to 
conform to the new and broader conditions of our national 
life." 

— From page 805 of Address. 



Ohio Society op New York, 236 Fifth Avenue. 

New York, Nov. 10, 1891. 
Hon. J. M. Ashley, 

150 Broadway, N. Y. 
My Dear Governor Ashley : The paper which you 
read last evening before the Ohio Society of New York touch- 
ing upon existing defects in the Federal Constitution, the 
dangers they involve, and the remedies at hand, aroused 
in those who heard it a strong sense of its interest and value. 
A resolution thanking you for it and soliciting a copy of it 
for publication was unanimously passed. Sharing as I do 
this feeling of the Society, it is a personal pleasure to me to 

(767) 



— 768 — 

transmit to you their request, and to join personally with 
them in soliciting- compliance. 

Very truly yours, 

Wager Swayne. 



New York, November 11th, 1891. 

My Dear Genl. : It gives me pleasure to comply with 
the request of the Ohio Society of New York. 

Herewith I hand you a copy of my address for publica- 
tion, and thank the Society for its complimentary approval. 

My acknowledg^ements are also due for the very ag"ree- 
able manner in which you have been pleased to convey their 
-wishes, and for the personal expression of your interest in 
the address. 

Truly yours, 

J. M. ASHI^EY. 

To Genl. Wager Swayne, 

President of the 

" Ohio Society of New York." 



Mr. President and Gentlemen op the Ohio Society 
OF New York: The favor with which this societj^ received 
my address at its annual banquet last 3-ear, and the letters of 
generous commendation received by me from eminent men, 
thanking- me for that contribution to our anti-slavery history, 
was so unexpected and gratifying that I am now glad I then 
acceded to the request of our worthy President and delivered it. 

But for his friendly determination that I should make 
such an address, it would not have been prepared. 

I can but hope that what I am to say before you to-night, 
may receive a like cordial reception. 

To you, and through you to the considerate judgment of 
all who may read what I shall sav, I propose to submit some 
observations upon impending national questions, in connec- 
tion with our increase of population, as disclosed by our 
census reports for one hundred years of progress; questions 
which, if I forecast aright, are certain at an early day to con- 
front us, and to demand practical solution. 



— 769 — 

If the appeal I am about to make ag-ainst our present 
political system, shall cause you and those whom you can 
reach, to read and to give a deliberate judgment on the facts 
which I may present, I shall have accomplished my object. 

As there have been in the past, so in the future there are 
certain to be epochs in our national histor}-, so marked, that 
he who runs may read. Our transition from a confederation 
to a nation, including- the Revolutionar}^ War, the War of 
1812, the Mexican War and the War of the Rebellion, and 
the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing 
slavery, are great and important epochs of the past. 

In the near future, the impending epoch will mark a 
more complete recognition than we have yet witnessed, of 
the democratic idea in government, by amendments to our 
national Constitution, which will make it conform more fully 
than it now does to the imperative demands of a great repub- 
lican commonwealth. James Russell Lowell says, that 

" He who would win the name of truly ^reat 
Must understand his own age and the next, 
And make the present ready to fulfill 
Its prophecy, and with the future merge 
Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave. 
The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers' days were best." 

The Constitution of our fathers, acceptable as it was a 
hundred years ago to a majority of the then population of 
three millions, could not be adopted without material amend- 
ment by any national constitutional convention which might 
now be chosen by the votes representing our sixty-three mil- 
lions of people. 

If, then, it be true that with all our veneration for the 
Constitution of Washington, it would not to-day be accepted 
as it is and without material change, if submitted as a new 
Constitution to the people of the United States for their 
ratification or rejection, its defects must, indeed, be marked 
and radical. 

But it is not at all strange that in a hundred 3-ears we 
49 



— 770 — 

should, as a nation, have outgrown our Revolutionary Con- 
stitution. 

Since the org-anization of the National Government, the 
constitutions of all the orig-inal thirteen States have been 
changed, and some of them two or three times. This is also 
true of the constitutions of a majority of all the States ad- 
mitted into the Union since the adoption of the national Con- 
stitution. 

So long as slavery dominated the nation, amendments to 
our national Constitution, such as we are soon to see pro- 
posed and adopted, would have been impossible. 

The abolition of slavery has brought with it new duties 
and new responsibilities — duties and responsibilities which 
the nation cannot escape. 

With the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and 
Fifteenth Amendments, millions of former slaves became 
citizens, with all the rights and privileges of citizenship. 

These former slaves and their posterity must forever 
remain our countrymen and fellow-citizens, with rights co- 
equal with our own. 

In the 3'ear 1940, only fifty years, the Afro-American 
population of this countr}^ (including Indians and all races 
not properly classed as whites) will, as I estimate it, reach 
the number of 13,750,000 or more, and out-number the whites 
in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Missis- 
sippi, Alabama and Louisiana. That the colored man is cer- 
tain proportionately to hold his own in North Carolina, Ten- 
nessee and Southern Arkansas, is probable, and perhaps he 
will hold his own in the southeastern half of the Indian 
Territory and adjoining the Gulf along the eastern portion 
of Texas and for some distance up the Rio Grande. 

The census reports indicate that he will not increase 
north of 36 degrees 30 minutes in so great a ratio as the 
whites, nor in the old border slave States of Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and 
Northern Arkansas. On an accompanying map, I have 
marked by a black belt the States and parts of States, and 
the eastern portion of the Indian Territory and Texas, in 
which the Afro-American will in all probability dominate 



— 771 — 

"before the year 1940, and certainly before the close of the 
second century of the republic. 

In order that these estimates may be readily examined 
and verified by students of statistics, I have included in the 
appendix to my address, a table g-iving- the incompleted 
census report, as published to date, of our white and colored 
population for one hundred 3^ears, and an estimate for the 
second hundred years. 

As I estimate our total population in 1900, with the in- 
sufficient data before me, it will have reached eightj^-two 
millions or more, in 1940 one hundred and sixty-one millions 
or more, and in 1990 we shall number some three hundred 
and ninety millions; at v/hich time there v/ill be not less than 
twent3'-three millions of Afro-Americans. 

Confronted with these estimates and with the facts which 
I shall present, I feel warranted in claiming- your attention 
for an hour or more to-nig-ht on impending- questions as I see 
them, and hope by the co-operation of the "Ohio Society of 
New York " to obtain a more g-eneral hearing" by thinking- 
men, than might otherwise be g-iven me. 

THE LESSON OF OUR CENSUS REPORTS. 

Our census reports are invaluable, no less in aiding- us to 
forecast the work of our practical every-day business life, 
than in the solution of impending" political and philosophi- 
cal problems. 

To me, the first hundred years of our census reports 
teach that the impending- questions, national and State, 
which in the immediate future will confront us and demand 
solution, are the equitable distribution of political power; 
the guarantee to every qualified elector of a secret ballot, 
and an absolute equality of individual power for that ballot; 
the nomination and election of the President and all public 
of&cials, who are to be chosen by popular vote by a direct 
ballot, without the dictation of conventions or the interven- 
tion of an intermediate body such as our present ' ' College of 
Electors " for electing the President. 

Foremost among these, is the question of 



— 772 — 



THE EQUITABLE OR PROPORTIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF POLITI- 
CAL, POWER, 

national, State and cit}'. It is a question of such transcen- 
dent importance, that it must at an early day command the 
thoug-htful attention of the ablest statesmen in this country. 

In a democratic republic, it is of necessity a fundamental 
question, and underlies all others. 

As I view it, it is more important than tariffs, the free 
coinage of silver, or any question of ordinary legislation 
connected with the administration of the government. 

As in the past, the ablest and wisest of men have differed 
in opinion on questions of finance and on the practicability 
of current matters of administration, so in the future they 
are certain to differ. But on the question of an equitable 
distribution of political power, national, State and munic- 
ipal, so that every citizen shall be clothed at the ballot-box 
with equal political authority and in all legislative assemblies 
be represented in proportion to the number of votes cast in 
the nation and in his State, there ought to be no divided 
opinion among intelligent men who are in favor of demo- 
cratic government. 

In the war for the Union, the people of this country pro- 
nounced unmistakably for a national as contradistinguished 
from a confederated government, for a government which 
shall be a democratic republic in fact as well as in name, 
a government which ought to be administered by a concurrent 
majority of the nation, instead of a mere numerical majority 
in States, which is often a minority of the whole people. 

Under our present happy-go-lucky method of conducting 
national elections, the minority of the whole people have on 
more than one occasion seized and held the government for 
years. 

You will agree with me that any device, or trick, by 
which the minority seize and hold the government, national, 
State or city, is an indefensible political crime. 

In his "Disquisitions on Government" Mr. Calhoun has, 
with great clearness and marked ability, pointed out the 
danger incident to entrusting the numerical majority with 



— 773 — 

absolute political power. Had his arg-ument for tlie rights 
of minorities, and for what he terms "the necessity of con- 
current majorities" been made on behalf of individual elec- 
tors and manhood suffrag-e, instead of claiming- it for organ- 
ized political communities which he called sovereig-n States, 
he would have commanded the g-eneral approval of all 
friends of democratic g-overnment both in this country and in 
Europe. 

It will be conceded, without arg-ument, that one of the 
first duties of a representative g-overnment is. to g-uard and 
protect the right of suffrag-e. 

Only when the elector has g-uaranteed to him a free bal- 
lot and an honest count, can the political judgment of a g-reat 
commonwealth, or of a State or city, be collected. 

The more perfectly this judgment of the elector is col- 
lected, the more certain is the end accomplished for which 
representative government is established. 

To collect the opinions of the greatest number in the 
nation, or in any State or subdivision of a State, is not 
enough; the opinions of the minority must be collected as 
well, and as far as possible the sense of the entire community 
as a whole. To do this practically, special care must be taken 
that the minority shall always have its proportional repre- 
sentation in every legislative assembly according to the 
number of votes cast by the minority at any election for 
representatives, either in Congress or in State legislatures, or 
city governments, and under no combination of circumstances 
to permit the minority, through gerrymandering schemes, or 
other trick or device, to seize control of the government. 

The numerical majority must of necessity control and 
administer all democratic representative governments, but 
such governments, to be just and equitable, must have checks, 
such as the negative power which an intelligent minority can 
effectually use before the bar of public opinion, to resist con- 
verting the government of a mere numerical majority into 
one of despotic powers. Obviously enough all representative 
government becomes better and approximates nearer a per- 
fect government, the nearer it becomes a government of the 
concurrent majority. 

If every interest in the nation, or State, or municipality 



— 774 — 

•within a State, is represented in the legislative assemblies 
in proportion to the number of votes cast by each party or 
association, the combining of this minority interest will 
greatly increase its power for self-protection, and correspond- 
ingly decrease the power of the numerical majority to rule 
with a rod of . iron. It is not enough to provide constitutional 
limitations to the power of the numerical majority for the pro- 
tection of the minorit}-, unless the minority are clothed with 
the power of self-protection, so that they can enforce an obser- 
vance of these, rights by personal representation, open discus- 
sion and the public use of parliamentary rules. The numeri- 
cal majority being in possession of the government, will 
always favor a liberal interpretation of the power granted in 
any constitution or charter, and on one pretext or another, 
evade or disregard the restrictions intended to limit them, 
unless the minorit}'- are clothed with the power of self-pro- 
tection, which can only be had by proportional representation 
and the power which intelligent debate and publicity always 
secures. 

On the threshold of m}' remarks, it is proper that I should 
state the nature of the amendments I would propose to our 
national Constitution, apd to the objectionable features of 
our national system of elections. 

Briefly, these comprise the nomixation and election 
of the President of the United States, and Senators and Rep- 
resentatives in Congress, by a direct vote of the people, by 
ballot; the creation of an independent body of ofl&cials in 
every State, to be elected by the voters of each, whose 
powers and duties shall be to conduct all national elections 
within their respective States, and fill all vacancies that 
may from time to time occur for the incompleted terms in 
the ofl6.ce of President, Senators or Representatives in Con- 
gress. 

The changes contemplated also include the abolition of 
the of&ce of Vice-President, and the abolition of all nom- 
inating conventions. 

THE ABOLITION OF THE CONVENTION SYSTEM. 
From the time of its adoption many of the ablest states- 



— 775 — 

men in this country were opposed to the convention system, 
although they were compelled to submit to its authority. 
The}^ opposed it because they comprehended that it was 
an organized machine, which offered a standing" premium 
on political fraud and corruption. They saw that it would 
breed a class of self-appointed leaders who would live on 
of&ce and plunder; that the g-eneral tendency would be to 
nominate men for important positions whom no prudent 
private citizen would for a moment think of selecting- for 
a public trust. And they opposed it because it is a system 
unknown to the Constitution and was never contemplated b}' 
its framers. Within fifty years it lias grown to be a monster 
political despotism, and in both parties is to-day the absolute 
master of the people, in all cities of the first and second class, 
and in all State and national nominating conventions. 

From the birth of the first national convention to the 
adjournment of the last, not one-tenth of the voters of the 
country of either of the great political parties have been 
represented in what are known as the " primaries," that is, 
in the ward or township caucuses, where each party begins 
the work of selecting its delegates for all national. State and 
district conventions. 

At all county and city conventions for the appointment 
of delegates to district and State conventions, the number of 
voters actually represented is still less than one-tenth. 

In national conventions the delegates, thus chosen by 
district and State conventions, practically represent only 
cliques and cabals, and even they are often powerless in the 
hands of the managers of the "machine," and instead of 
being a deliberative body, every national convention becomes 
an irresponsible mob, which, under the manipulation of in- 
triguers, absolutely dictates for whom the people shall vote 
at every election for President, and from this dictation there 
is no escape and no appeal except to bolt the "regular 
nominee" of j-our party, which practically means political 
excommunication and often personal ostracism. A national 
convention made up and organized thus name the President 
as certainly as if they alone were the voters, and as if the 
entire body of the people were disfranchised and voiceless. 



— 776 — 

This condition of things also obtains largely in all party 
conventions, State and district, city and count}-. 

If this statement is even approximately true, certainly 
the first and most desirable reform to be attempted in this 
countr}-, ought to be the abolition of all such nominating 
conventions as now enable a small and active minority, of 
one-tenth or less, to rule and dictate to the remaining nine- 
tenths or more. 

For securing to every voter an equal voice in the National 
Government, and for a more equitable distribution of political 
power, the following plan could be made to approximate 
mathematically to the total voting population of the nation, 
if it were not for the existence of large and small States, and 
the inequality of representation of each State in the Senate 
of the United States. 

So long as there are States which contain a population 
of but a few thousand, or States without sufficient popula- 
tion for coequal commonwealths; and so long as the present 
inequality of representation in the Senate of the United 
States is maintained, the amendments here proposed provide 
for the fairest and most equitable distribution of political 
power in the National Government, which I have been able 
to devise. 

For State governments, whether large or small, and for 
all city or municipal governments within States, it is ap- 
proximately perfect. It provides a system which cannot be 
successfully manipulated against the people by party bosses 
or intriguing leaders, whether national. State or city, and is 
adapted to the wants" and growth of our democratic institu- 
tions. Let me briefly illustrate the manner of its working 
in the nomination and election of Representatives in Con- 
gress. 

Ohio is entitled to twenty-one members of Congress by 
the new apportionment for 1891. 

Under the plan proposed there would be four Congres- 
sional districts in that State, in each of which there would be 
five Representatives in Congress to be elected on one ballot, 
and there would also be one member to be elected for the 
State at large. 

It will be observed that this distribution of political 



— Ill — 

power, under the new apportionment, secures to each elector 
in Ohio the right to vote for six Representatives in Con- 
gress, and no more than six, and that under no apportion- 
ment which can be made after any census, can the voters 
in Ohio, or in any State, vote for more than seven Repre- 
sentatives. But if any elector so elects he can run his pen 
or pencil across the name or names of any one or more of 
the candidates on this ballot, for whom he does not desire 
to vote, and cumulate his vote for any one or more of the 
candidates authorized to be voted for in the State and dis- 
trict in which he resides. Each elector would thus have 
secured to him absolute freedom of choice from among- 
the candidates placed in nomination by his own party, as 
provided by law, and also from those nominated by any 
party with votes enough to select a ticket, and it would 
be as impossible for any voter, or for the judges of any 
election, to commit fraud in preparing and depositing such 
a ballot, or in its being counted, as it would be were the 
voter filling up a bank check to be paid by a cashier for 
one or six thousand dollars. And in no event, under this 
plan, can the minority of the total vote cast in any State 
secure a majority of its delegation in Congress by the in- 
defensible distribution of political power known as gerry- 
mandering. In fact, this plan renders the trickery and 
injustice of gerrymandering impossible. 

The simplicity and practicability of this plan, which is ap- 
plicable alike for national. State and city governments, 
must commend itself to all students of political reform. 

New York, under the new apportionment, is entitled to 
thirty-four Representatives in Congress. The plan proposed 
would give the State eight Congressional districts of four 
members each, and two for the State at large, so that each 
elector in New York would be entitled to vote for six Repre- 
sentatives in Congress. Thus each voter in Ohio would 
vote for the same number of Representatives as a voter in 
New York, or if he so elected he could cumulate his vote, 
and cast the six votes to which he is entitled for an}^ one or 
more of the candidates nominated by any part}-. 

Of the manner in which nominations are to be made I 
shall speak further on. 



— 778 — 

It will be conceded that political power is unequally and 
unjustly distributed, wherever in any State the minority 
obtains or elects a larg-er number of Representatives in Con- 
gress or in the State legislature by the tricker}^ of gerr}-- 
mandering, or by any other dishonest device, nor is there any 
defense for a system which authorizes an elector in a popu- 
lous county in the State to vote for a greater number of 
Representatives to the State legislature than an elector who 
resides in a less populous count3^ 

An elector in our State, who resides in Hamilton County, 
is authorized to vote for ten members of the legislature, and 
in Cuyahoga for eight or nine, while an elector in Fulton 
and in a majority of all the counties in the State, can vote 
but for one member. It must be clear to the average man 
that the elector who votes for ten members of the State 
legislature on one ballot is clothed with much greater politi- 
cal power than an elector who votes for but one. In addition 
to this injustice, it is well known that these ten members for 
Hamilton County may, in the future as they have been in 
the past, be elected by a mere plurality of the votes cast in 
that count}', and not by a majority. When this happens the 
entire representation from Hamilton County in the State 
legislature is secured by a minority of the votes cast in that 
county, and oftener than otherwise such an election changes 
the political complexion of the leg'islature, and gives to the 
minority of the voters in the State, control of the leg^islative 
department of the State government. So long as the caucus 
and convention system obtains, and the inequality- between 
electors in the populous and less populous counties of the 
State is continued, with the present indefensible distribution 
of political power to the larger and smaller counties, just so 
long will desperate political cliques alternately dominate 
in such counties and in the State; and the government for 
cities and for State institutions be attempted by "commis- 
sions," appointed by the party in power. 

It would be difficult to conceive of a more offensive ex- 
hibition than that which all last winter was enacted in the 
State of Connecticut for the want of an honest distribution 
of political power. 

Under this plan, substantially as outlined, I am confident 



— 779 — 

that any man of mature j^ears and fair executive ability, 
with a small committee of five or seven business men (but 
never a committee of one hundred) could dislodg-e and defeat 
all org-anized political combinations such as now rule New- 
York and Cincinnati. 

Nothing" is more certain if the voters can be g-uaranteed 
the right to make their own nominations, than that this re- 
sult can be successfully accomplished with half the labor and 
less than half the mone}^ uselessly thrown away, every year or 
two, by spasmodic efforts on the part of exasperated and 
worthy citizens. 

It might, and probably would, require two sharply con- 
tested battles before the voters could accustom themselves to 
the new mode of nominating- and electing- their officials. 
But the second battle in most cases, and the third battle cer- 
tainly in a majority of cases, would end in the complete rout 
of all cliques and self-appointed leaders, who now live at the 
public crib in both cities and States by the org-anized power 
secured to them by the political "machine." If such rings 
and combines as we have in the cities of New York and Cin- 
cinnati can be successfully dislodged as proposed, it may be 
safely predicted that they could and would be dislodg-ed and 
defeated in every State and in all cities. 

That the plan proposed will enable the people to accom- 
plish this I am fully persuaded, provided always that a ma- 
jority of the people vote to elect their own nominations, not 
otherwise. This plan is for the government of majorities. 
It is opposed to a g-overnment by commission, and to all 
schemes for clothing- the minority with the administration of 
g-overnment, national, State or city. 

Let me illustrate briefly the working of the plan if put 
in operation by the States of Ohio and New York and in the 
cities of New York and Cincinnati. 

In the States and cities named, or indeed in all States 
and cities where democratic government and home rule is 
demanded, the State constitutions iind city charters would em- 
body the principles of the proposed amendment of the 
national Constitution, and provide in like manner for the 
nomination and election of governors and mayors and all offi- 
cials to be chosen by the people, whether State or city. The 



— 780 — 

plan for the nomination and election of members of the 
leg-islature, or the law-making- departments of city g-overn- 
ment, would thus be uniform for all States and cities. This 
can be done in every State and in all cities with mathematical 
accurac3% 

Affirming- the practicability and necessity of two repre- 
sentative law-making- bodies in national, State and city 
governments, I would provide that in all cases Senators shall 
be elected by districts in every State, and members of the 
board of aldermen in all cities in districts of not less than 
three nor more than five members each, and that the number 
of Senators and members of all aldermanic boards should 
invariably be composed of one-third the number of members 
to be elected in districts to the lower House in both States and 
cities. 

Thus in Ohio, I would provide, were I a member of a 
constitutional convention or a member of the leg-islature, that 
the State constitution should be so amended that there shall 
be ninety members of the lower house, to be elected in districts 
of five members each, and not less than three members of the 
lower house in addition, for the State at large. To deter- 
mine the territorial boundaries of the 18 representative dis- 
tricts, I would divide the total vote of the State for governor 
by 90, which will give the number of voters to be allotted to 
each district. 

As the Senate, to be elected by districts, would in every 
case be composed of one-third the number of representatives 
(that is, 30 Senators), there would be six senatorial districts, 
in each of which five Senators would be elected, and in addi- 
tion not less than three Senators for the State at large. This 
would make a House of 93 members and a Senate of 33, and 
always secure an odd number in each house. 

In New York, I would allot 120 members to the lower 
house, and have them elected in 24 districts of five members 
each, and not less than three members of the House in addi- 
tion for the State at large. 

In a House of 120 members elected by districts, the Senate 
would be composed of one-third that number, or 40 Senators, 
to be elected in eight senatorial districts of five Senators 
each, and three Senators in addition to be elected by the State 



— 781 — 

at large. The territorial apportionment for the districts in 
which members of the House are to be chosen would be 
determined by dividing- the total vote of the State for gover- 
nor bj 120, and I would provide that in both State and city 
apportionments three representative districts of the lower 
house of contiguous territory, should always make a sena- 
torial or aldermanic district. 

For all State and municipal or city governments this 
plan secures the absolute equitable distribution of political 
power, on a mathematical basis, in all apportionments for 
members of representative bodies, and guarantees to all 
organized groups of electors, numbering not less than one- 
eighth of the total vote cast at any election, in any State or 
city, equality of political power, by providing that no elector 
in State or city shall vote for a greater number of candidates 
than another elector, but that each elector shall have .au- 
thority to cumulate his vote, so as to secure to any group of 
electors numbering one-eighth and a fraction of the total 
vote, a representation in all State and city legislative assem- 
blies, that shall correspond approximately with the total 
number of votes cast at any election for Representatives in 
State legislatures, or in the law-making branch of any city 
government. 

It will be conceded that this plan, even without the pro- 
vision for selecting all candidates by ballot as provided at 
nominating elections, would be a vast improvement on the 
present manner of electing our President, United States 
Senators and Representatives in Congress, and all State 
and city officials. By embodying in the plan the provision 
for making such nominations by the people, the system 
becomes impregnable in the hands of intelligent voters. 
But the tremendous power which this plan would secure to 
all able and honestly conducted newspapers cannot at present 
be estimated. That it would give them a power they have 
never had will be readily understood b}^ any one now con- 
nected with the press who gives this matter proper consid- 
eration. 

The democratic idea in government demands, and the 
plan which I here submit recognizes, that in all States and 
cities each elector shall have secured to him a secret ballot, 



— 782 — 

and the rig-lit to vote on one ballot for not less than three 
State Senators for the State at larg-e, and for not less than 
three members of the lower house of the legislative assembly 
for the State at large, and in senatorial districts for five 
Senators in each, and in representative districts for five 
members each to the lower house. 

This secures an absolutely equitable distribution of polit- 
ical power, and also political equality to every voter in the 
State, as each elector could only vote for the same number 
of Senators, and for the same number of Representatives in 
the lower house. 

But if he desired he could cumulate his vote and dis- 
pose of his votes for Senator and his votes for members of 
the legislature as he might elect, by deliberately erasing 
with pen or pencil the name or names of the persons nomin- 
ate4 for Senators or Representatives, for whom he did not 
desire to vote, and designate opposite the name or names of 
his favorite candidates the number of votes which he wished 
transferred to them. 

In the appendix to my address will be found the form for 
all ballots, national, State and city. 

The plan is so simple, and so free from the possibility of 
fraud or misinterpretation, that I am confident it will recom- 
mend itself to the considerate judgment of all thoughtful 
men engaged in the work of representative and ballot reform. 
That this plan when adopted will prove an invaluable 
educator will not be questioned. 

Those who recognize the capacity of the people for self- 
government will approve some such plan, while those who 
doubt or den}^ that the people are sufiicientl}^ intelligent to 
be intrusted with the power of self-government will oppose 
and condemn every proposed reform which promises to destroy 
the political machine, and break the political manacles with 
which intriguers and conventions now environ the voter in 
all parties, national and State. 

It will be seen that this plan clothes with absolutely inde- 
pendent political power all electors, and that they are thus 
enabled to vote at every election, free from the arbitrary 
dictation of political caucuses and conventions, and of all 
self-appointed political leaders. 



— 783 — 

Affirming" the fundamental proposition, upon which this 
plan is founded, that a great continental commonwealth can 
only be permanently maintained in peace and unity, by a 
government in which the whole people of all the States, the 
minority no less than the majority, are personally represented 
in its national legislative assembly, in proportion to the 
total number of its qualified voters, I gladly avail myself of 
the opportunity which this Society has given me, to lay 
before it my contribution to the suggestions, which, in the 
near future, must be submitted and discussed by the people 
before any such change as I contemplate can be made. 

THS PLAN DEMOCRATIC. 

An examination of this plan will disclose that it is equi- 
table, comprehensive and democratic ; that it is applicable 
alike in all governments, whether States, cities or munici- 
palities, in which a democratic representative government 
is possible. 

It recognizes the complete sovereignty of the people, and 
secures responsible local self-government. It throws around 
the ballot-box every safeguard necessary for the security 
of the voter and the purity of elections, and arms each voter 
with a weapon which, if he but use it, will on all occasions 
give him complete protection against secret or open combina- 
tions of political intriguers. It makes impossible the suc- 
cessful use of the political machinery of our present caucus 
and convention system, or machiner}^ such as has long been 
in use by Tammany Hall in this city, and by like organiza- 
tions of both parties in other cities. 

It destroys absolutely the power of political bossism, 
and enables the people to defeat all such combinations as 
now dictate to voters as imperiously as if they were convicts 
in a State prison, keeping lock-step, while marching to the 
polls, and obeying the order of the managers of the political 
"machine." That the present convention system of each 
party should have so firmly fastened itself upon the people 
of this country, is an amazing fact in our history. Under 
this system, the recognized bar-room statesmen in this city, 
or indeed in any city, can, and usually do, select and have 



— 784 — 

appointed to all State, district and" city conventions a larger 
number of deleg-ates than can be secured by any editor o^ 
even the ablest party org-an. As a rule, and for the express 
purpose of binding- in advance such editors to support the 
nominees, whoever they may be, they are put on deleg"ations 
to all important conventions; special care being" taken that 
they shall be sandwiched between a sufficient number of 
" reliable statesmen " to render them powerless ag-ainst the 
"machine," either in such conventionsor out of them. 

It has long- been a recog-nized common law rule in 
politics that every delegate taking- part in any convention 
is in honor bound to defend the platform adopted, however 
objectionable, and support the candidates nominated, even 
though their nominations were secured by trickery or fraud. 

In this way many editors are yearly marched into con- 
ventions and practically manacled, and compelled by party 
usage, and party necessit}-, to support the nominee, how- 
ever unworthy, and defend the platform, however offensive, 
adopted by any convention in which they may have thus ap- 
peared as delegates, bound hand and foot. 

The plan which I propose will change all this, and prac- 
tically lodge the power where it ought to be, with the peo- 
ple, represented by the public press. By public discussion 
secret intriguers can be defeated more certainly than in any 
other way, and all editors can appeal to their readers to 
second their efforts to secure desirable candidates at all 
nominating elections. If a majority of the voters in any 
party unite with them at such nominating elections, it will 
be found that almost invariably reputable and worthy men 
have been selected as candidates. Editors of character and 
ability will thus always be able, under this plan, to com- 
mand a favorable hearing with a hundred voters to every ten 
that can be induced to go to a caucus and vote for the nom- 
ination of any candidate presented by the most active and 
successful among our leading "practical statesmen." Daily 
in. all cities, morning or evening, in the quiet of their homes, 
every editor under this plan can reach an appeal to his 
readers and ask them to cut out the ticket printed in his 
paper, and go to the polls and vote it, with the statement 
that in his opinion by a proper effort, the candidate or candi- 



— 785 — 

dates named can be nominated. I shall not attempt to esti- 
mate the power which this plan will secure to an able and 
independent press. 

The usual results in our present national conventions 
are that the deleg-ates from the so-called ".pivotal States'' 
dictate to each party all nominations for President. After 
a sufficient number of ballots have been taken to weary a 
majority of the rank and- file in any convention, and the 
weak points of the several contestants have been disclosed, 
the programmes of the contending- chiefs are then deter- 
mined and .the ablest boss manipulator of the "machine" 
g-enerally wins. As he g-oes to the convention to win, he 
does not stand on the order of employing- the means neces- 
sary to that end. 

The moment the lay deleg-ates discover the "situation" 
they become wild in their zeal to be heard, and the most un- 
blushing- and reckless frantically jump upon seats and desks 
with yells that always amaze the uninitiated, each of them 
demanding- recog-nition by the chairman in order that he may 
have the honor of leading- off and being- the first in the mad 
scramble to have the vote of his State dul}^ recorded for the 
candidate who is slated to win, or to declare in a ring-ino- 
speech that his deleg-ation has instructed him to announce 
that his State has decided to chang-e its vote from their 
" favorite son" to the candidate who is to be successful. 

This movement, thoug-h an old dodg-e, is often so skill- 
fully played that it stampedes the deleg-ates and g-ives success 
to the secretly prearrang-ed prog-ramme of the machine 
manag-ers. 

The candidate of the machine is thus oftener than other- 
wise nominated without the slig-htest reg-ard to his ability or 
qualifications for the duties of the presidential ofifice, and 
when officially declared the nominee, the entire party is forced 
to support him, even though it be conceded that his nomina- 
tion has been secured by trickery and fraud. 

In the interval between the hours when the nomination 
is made and the final adjournment of the convention, other 
important matters are being- transacted. Papers are duly pre- 
pared and signed by deleg-ates for each other, reciting- the in- 
50 



— 786 — 

valuable part}' services of deleg-ates from this State and that 
WHO VOTED RIGHT, and especially the "claims" of deleg-ates 
from "pivotal States," and before the convention has fairly 
adjourned, the delegates who made the nomination possible 
are "booked" for official recognition under the new 

ADMINISTRATION, IF THE CANDIDATE SHOULD BE ELECTED. 

The political demoralization from this condition of thing-s 
cannot be even approximately estimated. The adoption of 
my plan for nominating- all candidates by a direct vote of all 
electors by ballot, will, beyond question, secure the early 
abolition of all national nominating- conventions, and even- 
tually of all State, count}^ and city conventions, thus eman- 
cipating- the voters of all parties from the despotism of party 
cliques and party conventions. 

In thus superseding- the present caucus and convention 
system, each elector will be secured in a rig-ht he never had 
before, the rig-ht to vote directly for his first choice for any 
candidate from President down, without the fear of indirectly 
aiding- in the election of an objectionable candidate, because 
the first election in every instance is simply a nominating- 
election. 

I have provided that at all nominating- elections each 
g-roup of electors, or each part}-, shall prepare its own bal- 
lot, and also that each individual voter may prepare his own 
ballot, either printed or written, as he may elect and as the 
law shall prescribe. 

After the nominations are made, Cong-ress is specially 
directed to provide bylaw that the " Colleg-e of Deputies" 
in each State shall cause all the official ballots to be prepared 
and properly distributed, substantially as in the " Australian 
S3'stem," which has been adopted by several of our States. 



abolish THE OFFICE OF VICE-PRESIDENT. 

To me, there is no provision of our national Constitu- 
tion so objectionable as that which creates the office of the 
Vice-President, and in case of the resig-nation, disability or 
death of the President, clothes that functionary with the 
chief executive office. Objection was made to the creation 



— 787 — 

of the office of Vice-President by some of the clearest 
thinkers in the convention which framed the Constitution, 
some of whom declared that " the of&ce was unnecessary and 
dang-erous." 

The wisdom of their opposition has been confirmed more 
than once in our history. 

As all know, the Vice-President is a superfluous officer, 
and as experience has shown, more ornamental than useful. 
He is simply a figure-head, and since the birth of the conven- 
tion system not an attractive one at that. But as the " heir- 
apparent " he is always a possibility. Around every Vice- 
President all factions and cranks in his party involuntarily 
gather. Whether he wishes it or not, all disappointed appli- 
cants for office, and all conspirators are drawn towards him 
as by the law of gravitation. That our revolutionary fathers 
should have preserved this shadowy relic of monarchy in our 
Constitution by creating an "heir-apparent" is one of the 
unexplained facts in our history. And then, our "heir-ap- 
parent " is unlike that of any other provided for, in any gov- 
ernment on earth, in that he has no ties of affection or con- 
sanguinity or gratitude. The President is never the father 
of the Vice-President nor his benefactor, but often his. 
personal and political rival. 

This provision of the Constitution simply invites every 
Vice-President to be a Richard III., or a conspirator ready 
and waiting the promotion, which assassins can always 
secure for him, by creating- a vacancy in the office of Presi- 
dent, as was done in the " removal" of Lincoln and Garfield.. 

Night and morning, at banquets and funerals, every- 
where and on all occasions, the Constitution perpetually 
whispers in the ear of every unscrupulous and ambitious 
Vice-President, "that between him and the highest and 
most honorable office on earth there is but the life of a single 
man." 

Instead of such an officer as the Vice-President, the 
provision originally suggested in the first draft made by the 
committee in the convention of 1789 ought to have been made 
part of the Constitution. That provision simply provided 
that "The Senate shall choose its own presiding and other 
officers." 



— 788 — 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is always a 
member of that bod}', and must be selected by its members. 
The Speaker appoints all committees of the House, and can, 
if he so elects, vote on all questions before the House and also 
take part in debate, while the Vice-President cannot appoint 
the Senate committees, nor vote, except in case of a tie, nor 
can he participate in debate on the floor of the Senate. His 
very existence and presence is a menace and a peril to any 
man in the of&ce of President. 

The peace of our country has been imperiled during- our 
history more than once, because of the existence of the office 
of Vice-President. We would have escaped the ordea^ 
throug-h which the nation passed in 1801, when Jefferson and 
Burr were candidates, if there had been no vice-presidential 
office. And here I may appropriately quote from a speech 
which I made in Cong-ress on this subject in 1868, when I 
said "that had there been no such office as Vice-President, 
we should have been spared the perfidy of a T3^1er, the be- 
trayal of a Fillmore and the baseness and infamy of a John- 
son." 

After drawing- a picture of the conspiracy which ulti- 
mated in Mr. Lincoln's assassination, I said in the same 
speech, that "I present this panoramic view of what is now 
history to illustrate how weak and indefensible in this par- 
ticular is the presidential office, so that I may appeal to the 
nation to fortify it against this danger hy removing- the 
temptation now presented to conspirators and assassins, and 
thus make the presidential office a citadel against which they 
may hurl themselves in vain." 

"Adopt this plan and the occupant of the presidential 
office will be effectually guarded from all political conspira- 
cies which thrive by assassination. It also precludes the 
possibility of an interregnum in that office." (Congres- 
sional, Gi^OBE, 2d Session, 40th Cong-ress, Part 3, pag-e 2714.) 

In all national conventions, the averag-e candidate for 
Vice-President is practically a "pawn" on the political 
chessboard in the hands of the managers of the "machine," 
and is disposed of as absolutely as the skilled chess-player 
moves and disposes of his "pawn" in any sharp g-ame of 
chess. 



— 789 — 

More than once, in the history of the Democratic, Whig- 
and Republican parties, has the vice-presidential "pawn" 
been used by the " machine " manag^ers to defeat the nomi- 
nation of candidates for President, who would have been 
nominated but for the intrig"uers, who successfully played 
the vice-presidential "pawn" to defeat the first choice of 
he party, and to nominate candidates who were not even the 
second or third choice of the party for President. 

From the first national convention to the last, not one of 
all the men nominated by either party for Vice-President, 
could have been nominated for President by the convention 
which nominated him for Vice-President. Yet the Consti- 
tution makes every Vice-President the "heir-apparent." 

Had the plan which I propose for filling- a vacancy in 
the presidential office been part of our national Constitution, 
when either one or all of our four Presidents passed away, 
and thus made that office vacant, nothing* is more certain 
than that not one of the men who was then Vice-President 
could have been selected to fill out the unexpired term of that 
President. 

Let me ask you to look in upon such a g-athering" of the 
national " Colleg-e of Deputies," as it would appear, on the 
plan proposed, when in session at Washing"ton for the pur- 
pose of selecting- a President to fill out the unexpired term 
of any President. 

A.nd first, look at the members of such an assembly indi- 
vidually. That such a body of men would be made up of the 
fairest and most trustworthy citizens of each State, is as- 
sured by the requirement which prescribes that the young-est 
member shall not be less than 30 years of age, and that he 
shall have been seven years a resident of the State from 
which he is chosen, and that he shall be nominated and 
elected by the duly qualified electors of each State. Selected 
in conformity with this plan, no better guarantee could be 
g-iven as to their character and fidelity. 

Under the apportionment of 1891 for Representatives in 
Congress, there would be 444 members of such a College of 
Deputies when convened in session at Washington, repre- 
senting the majority and minority of the whole people in 
each State, as equitably as can be secured with the present 



— 790— 

distribution of political power in our larg"e and small States. 
No intellig-ent man familiar with our liistor}' can for a 
moment believe that such a body of men, when called upon 
to rise each in his place and vote viva voce for a citizen to 
fill out the unexpired term of any deceased President, that 
the}' would have been g-uilty of the foil}' or crime of select- 
ing- John Tyler to fill the vacancy caused by the death of 
General Harrison, or Millard Fillmore to fill the vacancy 
caused by the death of General Taj'lor, nor would it have 
been possible for such a body to have filled the vacancy 
caused by the assassination of Mr. Lincoln by the selection 
of Andrew Johnson, or Chester A. Arthur to fill that of 
General Garfield. If it be true that such a body of men 
Would not have selected any one of the four Vice-Presidents, 
who as the "heir-apparent" became President on the death 
of his chief, and if, as I believe, not one of the men named 
could b}' any combination have been nominated for President 
by the convention which nominated him for Vice-President, 
have I not presented considerations which will justify the 
people of this country In demanding- the early abolition of 
the office of Vice-President? 

THE DECENTRAI^IZATION OF POLITICAL POWER. 

With the adoption of this proposed amendment all con- 
flict of authority between the national and State govern- 
ments will cease, because the powers and duties of each will 
have been definitely and clearly defined, so that all States 
now in the Union, and all States which in the future may be 
admitted, can have no cause for controversy. 

Each State and all municipal governments within any 
State will be fully protected in its dignity and freedom from 
intervention on the part of the officials of the National Gov- 
ernment, and may regulate its own internal affairs in its 
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States. 

After the adoption of this amendment. Congress could 
not clothe the President nor any official of the National Gov- 
ernment (as it ma}' now do) with authority to interfere in 
any national election in any State, nor would it then be pos- 



— 791 — 

sible for Congress to enact such a law as the so-called 
"Force Bill." 

In all elections for President and Senators and Repre- 
senatives in Cong-ress, the people of each State have, bj this 
plan, direct and absolute control by personal vote, free from 
the intervention of the political machinery of State g-overn- 
ments. 

Nor does this plan interfere in any way with the elec- 
toral or administrative machinery of State g-overnments, or 
municipal governments in States; nor does it abridg-e the 
liberty or the privileges of the citizen of a.nj State; on the 
contrary, it enlarges his liberty and secures to him rights of 
which he never before was possessed except in name. It 
preserves the rights of the States and secures inviolable the 
sovereignty of the people. 

As the courts of the United States deal directly with the 
citizens of the several States without serious conflict from 
the State courts, so this amendment, and all laws which the 
Congress may enact by its authority, deal directly with the 
people and charge the citizens residing- in the several States 
with the selection by ballot of their own officials to conduct 
all national elections in their respective States. 

Under this plan you cannot lodge in the hands of any 
administration at Washington the control of the national 
electoral machinery in the States. To the College of Depu- 
ties in each State, and to no other officials, is given the au- 
thority to secure an honest registration to the electors in 
each State, and a free and fair election of President and 
Senators and Representatives in Congress. Instead of an in- 
crease of centralized power at Washington, to which I am 
opposed, this plan secures a marked decentralization of 
power, by placing it permanently and exclusively in the care 
and keeping of the citizens of each State. 

In all elections for President and Senators and Repre- 
sentatives in Congress, the entire machinery for conducting 
such elections is lodged in the hands of o'fficials nominated 
and elected by ballot directly by the qualified voters in each 
State, and these officials thus elected by the people of the 
several States can no more be induced to commit fraud or 
crime or be dictated to or controlled b}^ officials at Washing- 



— 792 — 

ton than a judg-e, or a duly impaneled jury in any Circuit or 
District Court of the United States in an}' State, nor can 
they be tampered with and corrupted b}- any administration 
at Washington. 

"Whatever power may originally have been "reserved to 
the States or to the people " in our present Constitution is by 
this plan secured to the people direct, without interference 
on the part either of the national or State governments. 

Instead of conferring additional power on the govern- 
ment at Washington touching national elections, this plan 

MATERIALLY DECREASES THE POWER CONFERRED ON CONGRESS 

BY OUR PRESENT CONSTITUTION, and provides that all power 
and authority in respect to the conduct of elections in the 
several States for President and Senators and Representa- 
tives in Congress shall be confided to the people direct, and 
in such manner that neither the officials of the National Gov- 
ernment nor of a State government can in any way interfere 
with the authorities or the duties of the College of Deputies 
chosen by the people in each State. 

It takes from a State no power properly belonging to it, 
but it takes from the State legislatures the power to elect 
United States Senators as now, and demolishes the power of 
the machine boss and the cross-roads statesman in every 
legislature, and makes it impossible for him to wield the 
power he now uses to compel the members of all State legis- 
latures to go into the caucuses for the nomination of United 
States Senators, where with one-third or less of the mem- 
bers of any State legislature he dictates who shall be the 
Senator from such State, as is now the case in nearl}- every 
State in the Union. It also deprives the legislature of the 
power of disfranchising the people, and sometimes a ma- 
jority of the people of a State, of their proportionate repre- 
sentation in Congress by unjust and indefensible acts of 
gerrymandering the State into Congressional districts. 

The power thus taken from Congress and from State 
legislatures is conferred directly on the people of each State 
in connection with all national elections, and secures a per- 
fect DECENTRALIZATION OP POWER, and docs not permit 
either the Senate or House of Representatives, as under our 
present Constitution, to be the judge of the qualifications of 



— 793 — 

its own members; under which rule, either House of Cong-ress 
can always find a partisan pretext for turning- a member out 
who has been elected, and seat a member who has not been 
elected, as has often been done, and will be done so long- as 
the present authority is vested in each House. 

This constitutional amendment prescribes The qualifi- 
cations OF Senators and members of the House, and con- 
fers on the people at the ballot-box the rig-ht to determine who 
the Senators and members from their State shall be, and 
from this decision there can be no appeal to either House of 
Cong-ress. All contests must be heard and determined in the 
District Court of the United States for the State and district 
in which any contest may arise. 

This plan secures full and free scope for the deliberate 
expression of the national will, not only in the nomination 
and election of the President, but in the selection of Sena- 
tors and Representatives in Congress and members of the Col- 
lege of Deputies. 

In States entitled to more than one Representative in 
Congress, each g-roup of electors, if their number be equal 
to one-third, or more or less as the case may be, can by 
cumulating- their vote always have a voice in the administra- 
tion of the g-overnment and thus be able to check and often 
to defeat schemes which are pernicious or undesirable. By 
securing to the people of every State proportional represen- 
tation, the convictions and conscience of the majority and 
minority in each State, and in the Nation, will always be 
represented in each State and at Washington, so that ill- 
considered or partisan movements, and sometimes the tem- 
porary madness of public opinion, may by prudent criticism 
and practical discussion be modified or rejected. 

The "pivotal States," as they are called, that is, larg-e 
States like New York, whose vote more than once has decided 
the election of a President, is one of the most corrupting- 
and dangerous powers in our system. The incentive to ille- 
g-al voting- and ballot-box stuffing, and to the importation of 
voters from adjoining States into such States as New York, 
is but one of the dang-ers inseparable from the election of 
thirty-six presidential electors on one ballot for the State at 
larg-e. 



— 794 — 

Under the present electoral machinery, a minority of 
the popular vote and a minority of the electoral vote secured 
the President at the time John Quincy Adams was chosen by 
the House of Representatives in 1825. No plan of national 
government is defensible which makes it possible for a mi- 
nority of the voters at the polls and a minority of the Elec- 
toral Collcg-e to succeed in electing" the President, as was 
done in 1825 when Mr. Adams was chosen. 

When some such amendment as I here propose shall have 
been adopted, no third- or fourth-rate man will thereafter be 
nominated for President. Certainly no man unknown to the 
people, nor any man whose political opinions were objection- 
able could possibl}^ be nominated, after each elector is au- 
thorized to vote direct by ballot for his first choice. In order 
to get votes enough at any nominating election to be included 
in the list of the four highest candidates, he must of neces- 
sity be a man of national reputation, with a character for 
political integrity and executive ability. 

The average elector has a proper estimate of the dignity 
and importance which belongs to the presidential ofiB.ce, and 
the voters of all parties, when naming their first choice for 
President, would naturalh^ turn to their ablest representative 
men. In no event could a mere faction or a minority in any 
party, by the use of the " machine," form combinations and 
defeat as they have done, and can now do, the nomination of 
any man who was the choice of the majorit}-. Schemers and 
intriguers would be powerless without the "convention 
machine," and could not by secret combinations hold the 
" balance of power" in an}'' large States like New York and 
Ohio, and dictate the nomination of their candidate on pain 
of defeating the party. Under my plan, the voice of all 
electors in each party would be heard, and desperate efforts 
could not be successfully made, such as we have more than 
once witnessed in New York, to obtain, no matter by what 
means, a bare plurality of the vote in the State, so as to 
secure the entire electoral vote of the State and thus elect 
the President. 



— 795- 



OBJECTIONS TO THE) BISECTION OF A PRESIDENT BY A COI^LEGE 
OP ELECTORS AND BY THE HOUSE OP .REPRESENTA- 
TIVES UNDER OUR PRESENT CONSTITUTION. 

Section One of Article Two of our Constitution prescribes 
the manner in which electors of President and Vice-Presi- 
dent shall be appointed by the several States as follows: 

"Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the leg^is- 
lature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the 
whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the 
State may be entitled in the Cong-ress." 

It will be observed that the Constitution thus confers on 
the leg-islature of each State, without qualification and be- 
yond the possibilit}' of doubt, absolute authority to appoint in 
such manner as a majority of any leg-islature may direct, the 
number of electors of President and Vice-President to which 
the State is entitled under any apportionment. The words, 
"in such manner as the leg-islature thereof may direct," are 
as clear and distinct as the Eng-lish lang-uag-e can make 
them. It must therefore be conceded that a majority in the 
leg-islature of any State, even thoug-h they represent a mi- 
nority of the total vote of the State, may appoint all the 
electors, or they may confer the power of appointment on any 
one or more persons (as the leg-islature of South Carolina did 
at one time confer the power to appoint the electors of 
President and Vice-President for that State on its g-overnor), 
or they may direct that electors for President and Vice-Pres- 
ident shall be chosen by the voters of the State, either in 
cong-ressional district or by the State at larg-e, or in any sub- 
division of the State, as thej^ may elect, and from such de- 
termination of the leg-islature there can be no escape. 

The enactment by the last legislature of Michig-an of a 
law chang-ing- the manner of appointing- the electors of Pres- 
ident and Vice-President for that State oug-ht to be a lesson 
and a warning-. 

It is well known that Michig-an is a State in which one 
party, when united, is uniformly in a majority. Factional 



— 796 — 

divisions and incompetent leadership on the part of the 
MAJORITY enabled the minority last 3'ear to seize control of 
the State g-overnment, including- the legislature. Where- 
upon.the leg-islature proceeded (as under the clause of the Con- 
stitution above qifoted they had the legal authoritj^ to do) to 
repeal the law, which from the organization of the State had 
provided that a majority of the voters in the State should 
select on one ballot for the State at large, all the electors of 
President and Vice-President; and enacted a law which 
directs that said electors shall be chosen in districts — dis- 
tricts which said legislature deliberately gferrymandered, so 
as to secure to the minority of the voters in the State a 
MAJORITY of the fourteen presidential electors to which the 
State is entitled in the Electoral College of 1892. 

If the legislatures of other States, in which the minority 
of the voters of either party may have secured by any com- 
bination a majority of its leg-islature, should follow the 
example of Michig-an (which is not improbable), and repeal 
the law which now authorizes the people to choose presi- 
dential electors in such States, and assume to appoint all 
the electors to which their State is entitled, or a majority of 
them, such action would disclose one of the weakest and 
most dang-erous defects of our present system for the choice 
of a President. 

The accidental control of the leg-islature by a minority 
of the voters of any party of one or more " pivotal States" 
would thus enable the minority to determine the choice of a 
President next 3-ear. And it is among the possibilities that 
the act of the Michig^an legislature in dividing the electoral 
vote of that State, may defeat the will of a larg-e majority of 
the people of Michigan and of the nation in their choice of 
a President in 1892. The new apportionment increases the 
vote in the Electoral Colleg-e to 444, of which number 223 are 
a majority. If the Democratic candidate in 1892 should 
carry all the States which voted for Mr. Cleveland in 1SS4, 
he would have 225 electoral votes and be elected. If he 
should lose West Virginia, and secure six or eig-ht votes from 
Michigan, because of the appointment of the electors in 
that State by districts, he would still be elected. 

It will be granted without argument, that if a minority 



— 797 — 

party in any State which, by accident or because of the in- 
difference of the MAJORITY, has secured control of its leg-is- 
lature, may in its partisan zeal repeal the law providing- for 
the choice of presidential electors by the people of such 
State, and by any device secure to its party the appointment 
of the ENTIRE NUMBER of presidential electors to which the 
State is by law entitled, or a majority of them, that our 
Constitution cannot be too speedily amended in this par- 
ticular. 

Should a MAJORITY of the voters in Michig-an, or in any 
State, attempt to appoint (as has been sug-g-ested) electors of 
President and Vice-President for 1892, under the law long- in 
use, but which may have been repealed by any State legisla- 
ture, such action would probably ultimate in two or more 
sets of electoral certificates being sent from such States to 
Washington, and result in a contest in Cong-ress such as we 
had in 1876-77; and might end in the selection of the 
President by the House of Representatives. 

Another objectionable feature of our electoral sj^stem is 
that which permits each member of a Colleg-e of Electors 
to vote a secret ballot for ^any person he may wish for 
President; and then, the officers of any pivotal State may 
corruptly certify to the election of presidential electors who 
have NOT been elected by the people of such State; and Con- 
g-ress may refuse to g-o back of the returns from any State, so 
certified by its corrupt or partisan officials. 

That we have reached a point in our history when the 
nation must g-ive serious consideration to the impending- 
dang-er which thus confronts us will not be questioned. 

The majority of the American people might refuse to 
submit to a repetition of such injustice and wrong. 

Another Electoral Commission mig-ht inaugurate a parti- 
san conflict that would end in revolution. 

The adoption of the proposed constitutional amendment 
herewith submitted, will at once put an end to all such dan- 
g-erous possibilities. When there are no longer "pivotal 
States," there will be no such desperate efforts as we now 
witness at each presidential election to carr}^ such States by 
improper and dangerous methods. 

A whole people cannot be corrupted, and manifestlv it 



— 798 — 

•would be impossible, when the nation voted as a unit, to 
secure a majority of the total vote by trickery and fraud. 

During- the next ten years, if an election of a President 
should devolve on the House of Representatives, composed of 
356 members, as it is under the present apportionment, fifty- 
five (55) members from twent3^-three States can, by uniting-, 
elect the President. It -will be seen that under our present 
Constitution less than one-sixth of the members of the 
House, representing- less than one-sixth of the population 
of the nation, can elect the President. 

The following- twentj^-three States would make a ma- 
jority of forty-four States: 



1. Delaware 

2. Idaho 

3. Montana 

4. Nevada 

5. North Dakota.. 

6. Wyoming- 

7. Florida 

8. Colorado 

9. New Hampshire 

10. Oreg-on 

11. Rhode Island . . . 

12. South Dakota. . . 

13. Vermont 



No. OF 

Votes. 



14. Washing-ton . . . 

15. Connecticut . . . 

16. Maine 

17. West Virg-inia. 

18. Arkansas 

19. Louisiana 

20. Maryland 

21. Nebraska 

22. South Carolina 

23. Mississippi. . . . 

Total Vote . . . 



No. OF 
Votes. 



IZ 



Of these seventy -two votes, fifty-five may cast the vote 
of the above-named twenty-three States (each State having" 
one vote), and thus fifty- five members, in a House of 356, 
can elect the President. 

It will not be questioned that it would be difficult to de- 
vise a more anti-democratic provision .than that which our 
present Constitution provides for the election of a Presi- 
dent by the House of Representatives. 



— 799 — 

The slave barons forced this anti-democratic provision 
in the Constitution, and political prog-ress was thus retarded 
a century. 

That less than one-sixth of the members of the House 
of Representatives can, by uniting-, select as President the 
person having- the smallest popular vote and the smallest 
number of electoral votes of the three candidates returned 
to the House, is a fact which forms one of the political anom- 
alies in our history. 

Why a practical people, such as ours, should for a hun- 
dred years have submitted to a system so anti-democratic and 
repugnant to all fair-minded, intelligent men, is something- 
I am unable to explain. 

When an election for President devolves on that bod}-, 
ONE-THIRD, and sometimes one-half of its members who vote 
to make the President, are men who have not been elected to 
the new Congress. 

As their terms expire on the 4th of March immediately 
after such an election for President, a majority of such retir- 
ing members are usually in condition and ready to accept ap- 
pointments from the man whom they have just voted to make 
President. 

LARGE AND SMAI,I, STATES. 

During- my early reading- of the Constitution, I often re- 
gretted that a clause had not been added to Article V., pro- 
viding- that at some time after its adoption, say in fifty or 
even in a hundred years. Senators of the United States should 
be apportioned among- the several States as Representatives 
are allotted to each, in proportion to the population of each. 

You will remember that Section 3 of Article I. provides 
that each State shall have two Senators, and that Article 
V. .contains this extraordinary provision: "And no State, 
without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in 
the Senate." These two provisions and the clause in Article 
II., which provides that "each State shall have one VOTE,'' 
when the choice of a President devolves on the House of 
Representatives, are quite as objectionable to me now, as 
when I first began the study of the Constitution, for the 



— 800 — 

reason, that they are a positive denial of the representative 
principle, and a flag-rant violation of the democratic idea in 
g-overnment. 

I would not vote to-day for the admission of a new State 
out of an}^ State, or for the admission of a Territory as a 
State, unless I could be satisfied that its population would, 
within a reasonable time, entitle it to not less than four (4) 
Representatives in Cong-ress^ under an}- apportionment which 
would result b}- dividing- the population of the nation by 356, 
the number of members of the House fixed by law under the 
present census. 

So long- as an}- State, without reg-ard to population, is 
clothed with the political power of two Senators, a State 
with less than four members is simpl}- a "rotten borough." 

Until the Senate is remodeled, and Senators of the United 
States are apportioned among- the several States on the basis 
of population, or, better 3'et, on the basis of the votes cast at 
each election for President, the admission of rotton boroug-h 
States ought to be resisted by all who believe in a democratic 
g-overnment, and an equitable representation of all the people 
in the national Congress. 

I regret to sa}- that within a 3'ear wc have witnessed the 
remarkable spectacle of six new States being dragged into 
the Union, with unexampled haste, whose combined popula- 
tion is not more than enough to make one commonwealth, 
and three of them will probably never have a population 
sufficient to entitle them to more than one Representative in 
Congress. And this was done with the example of Nevada 
before us as a warning. 

Every student of political science must look with amaze- 
ment on the reckless distribution of political power which we 
have witnessed in the recent admission of these six new 
States. 

Nevada contains to-day a territorial area of 109,740 
square miles, and is larger by seventy-four square miles in 
territorial area than all the six New England States with 
New York added. 

When this barren waste of sand and desert was admitted 
as a State in 1S64, the claim was made by its embr^-o states- 
men that it THEN contained a population of oxE hundred 



— 801 — 

THOUSAND or more, and that with its fabulous and inexhaust- 
ible mineral and pastoral wealth and its larg-e territorial 
area, nothing- could prevent it becoming- the " Empire State" 
west of the Missouri River and east of California. 

Whatever may have been its population in 1864, its popu- 
lation after twenty-seven years in the wonderful development 
promised by its romancing- of&cials is now reported by the 
census just taken at the astonishing- number 40,019. In 
round numbers call the population of this marvelous "Em- 
pire State" 40,000, and that of New York six millions, and 
we are face to face with the fact that each voter on this 
109,740 square miles of sand and sag-e-brush has more than 
FOUR TIMES the political power of a voter in New York in 
the House of Representatives, and one hundred and fifty 
times the power of a voter in New York in the Senate of the 
United States, and yet Senators from the States of New 
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, voted not only to 
perpetuate this inequalit}^ of political power, but to increase 
it, by making- precedents for future Congresses to follow. 

Instead of creating- " rotton borough" States, the states- 
men or party which shall devise a popular movement for 
merg-ing- two or more such undesirable States into onb State, 
so that such reorganized State shall contain a population 
sufficient for a respectable commonwealth, will be entitled to 
the thanks and gratitude of the nation. 

There are now seventeen States in the Union whose com- 
bined population is less than that op the State of New 
York. 

These seventeen States, as all know, have thirty-four 
Senators to represent them in the Senate of the United 
States, New York but Two. 

In case the election of a President devolves on the House 
of Representatives, these seventeen States have each one 
VOTE, while New York has but one vote, provided her 
Representatives in the House are not equallj^ divided, in 
which event HER VOTE is lost. 

I voted against the admission of West Virginia during 
the war, for the reason that I was unwilling to increase the 
political power of any State, in the Senate, by consenting to 
51 



— 802 — 

divide States of the third or fourth class into two or more 
States. 

Before her dismemberment, old Virginia had less than 
half the population of Pennsylvania, and the population of 
West Virginia when admitted was but one-seventh that of 
Ohio. I voted against it, for the additional reason that, as 
I interpreted Section 3 of Article IV. of the Constitution, 
its dismemberment was a clear violation of that instrument 
in both its letter and its spirit. 

And then I had a sentiment which impelled me to vote 
against the dismemberment of the old State. However unspar- 
ingly I may have condemned, as I did, her indefensible acts 
of secession and war on the Union, I could not forget that 
she was the mother of States and statesmen. I could not 
forget the heroic deeds and great acts of her Revolutionary- 
history, and especially that one great act, which as time 
rolls on, rises higher and higher in moral grandeur — I mean 
her cession to the nation of all that territory which to-day 
comprises the five great States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, 
Illinois and Wisconsin. And then, I remembered with grati- 
tude the fact that she enriched that priceless gift, b}- uniting 
with her sister States in passing the ordinance of 1787, which 
prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude forever in all 
that vast territory. I thought then, and think now, that 
that one sublime act ought to have saved the old common- 
wealth of commonwealths from the humiliation of such a 
spoliation and dismemberment. But this was one of the mad 
and unstatesmanlike acts of the war, and grievously has the 
party which did it, expiated it. 

THE NOMINATION OF CANDIDATES. 

At all nominating elections for President, or. for Sena- 
tors and Representatives in Congress, and for members of 
the College of Deputies, the voters in each State are secured 
in the right to vote direct by ballot for the nomination of 
candidates for each of the officers to be elected, and from the 
FOUR highest on the list for each office, voted for at such 
election, each party or group of electors must select its candi- 
dates to be voted for at the final election in November. 



— 803 — 

In voting- for the nomination of a President, or for 
United States Senator or for a Representative in Congress 
for States entitled to but one member, each elector can give 
but one vote for each candidate. Only v/hen there are two 
or more candidates to be nominated for Representatives in 
Congress and thkee or more members of the College of 
Deputies for a State, can an elector cumulate his vote at any 
nominating election. 

All electors and each organized party or group of elec- 
tors, must, under this plan, prepare their own ballots and 
vote directly, as provided by law, to nominate their first 
choice. That they can do this, free from the dictation of 
party conventions, party bosses, or " managing statesmen," 
will be clear enough to any man of ordinar}^ intelligence. 

There are certain to be four candidates on the list voted 
for, at each nominating election, who will have received a 
sufficient number of votes to be included with the four candi- 
dates to be nominated; that is, there will always be four 

CANDIDATES WITH A PI.URAI.ITY OVER THEIR COMPETITORS, Un- 
less there be two or more candidates who may have received 
an EQUAL NUMBER OP VOTES at any nominating- election 
(which will seldom happen). In case a tie vote should occur 
in any State or district, the College of Deputies for the State 
will be required by law to determine by lot or otherwise, 
which of the candidates having, an equal number of ^votes 
shall have his name printed on the official ballot and be 
eligible to be voted for at the regular election in November. 
In Ohio, by the apportionment provided for under the 
new census, there would be one candidate for Congress to be 
nominated for the State at large. In order that there shall 
be not less than four candidates for each office, to represent 
not less than four parties, or four groups of electors, it is 
provided that from the four names highest on the list voted 
for at each nominating election in August, the electors of 
each party shall select their candidates for the regular elec- 
tion in November. By providing that the number of candi- 
dates from which the electors may select shall be four for 
each office to be filled at any regular election, each of the 
great parties will uniformly and without question name its 
favorite candidates, and smaller groups of electors or new 



— 804 — 

parties can by this plan always secure their own candidates, 
provided they poll a sufficient number of votes, by cumulat- 
ing- them, to place their candidate among- the four hig-hest 
on the list voted for at any nominating- election. 

Each of the old parties would, after conference and pub- 
lic discussion through its part}' papers, be certain to concen- 
trate its vote, so as to put its own candidates at the head of 
the list, at all nominating- elections. 

The Prohibitionist, the National Alliance, and other 
party organizations, would, as a rule, be able to unite and 
cumulate their vote so as to secure one, if not two, of the 
four candidates. If, however, they failed to do this in anj- 
State or district, then and in that event they can select from 
the list of the four highest which may have been voted for, 
at each nominating election, and from ko others, one or 
more of such candidates as they may prefer. In this wa3' 
each minority part}*, or group of electors, could make up a 
ticket, as any party would be compelled to do, in order that 
the "College of Deputies" for each State might prepare and 
have printed and distributed the official ballots containing 
the names of all candidates duly nominated as prescribed by 
law, as only official ballots would be received at an}- regular 
election in November. 

In the State of Ohio there would be one candidate for 
Congress to be elected for the State at large, and four candi- 
dates from which to select. Each of the great parties would 
be compelled to make up its ticket from one of the four 
highest candidates on the list voted for, in the State at large, 
at any nominating election. in August. And any group of 
electors, whether Prohibitionists or National Alliance, or 
any party with a public organization, could make up a ticket 
from the list nominated, and require the "College of Depu- 
ties " in each State to print the name or names of the candi- 
dates designated by such party, or group of electors, on an 
official ballot to be voted for by them ; and, besides, each indi- 
vidual elector would be authorized to erase any name on his 
official ballot, and use a " paster" or write the name of any 
one of the duly nominated candidates in the place of the 
name of anj^ candidate whose name he might decide to erase. 

In Congressional districts of five, there would be four 



— 805 — 

candidates nominated for each member of Congress to be 
elected, or twenty candidates for each district of five mem- 
bers. 

The old parties would of course always have their own 
candidates, that is five candidates each, or one-half the number 
of the twenty hig-hest on the list. The next hig-hest on the 
list would probably represent the National Alliance and the 
Prohibitionists, and perhaps in some States other g-roups of 
electors. They could select their tickets from the ten that 
did not represent the two dominant parties, or if they were 
a group of " hig-h-kickers " or fighting" independents, they 
could select one from each of the candidates nominated, and 
thus have one or more candidates from each party, as they 
might elect. 

It will be seen that this plan, while preserving intact the 
two old parties, provides for securing to the minority, or to 
any new party, or to individual citizens, all the rights that 
legitimately belong to an independent voter in a democratic 
republic. 

In all States and in all cities this plan can be applied 
with mathematical accuracy, and with such unquestioned 
fairness to the majority and to the minority that one is 
often amazed that it has not long ago been adopted, and made 
part of our national Constitution, and also been engrafted in 
our State constitutions and put in force in the administration 
of all cities of the first and second class in every State. 

DISUNION IMPOSSIBLK WITH SUCH A CONSTITUTION. 

As the fatal dogma of secession, was buried in a common 
grave with the great rebellion, it is fitting and proper that 
the national Constitution should be so amended, as to conform 
to the new and broader conditions of our national life. 

If this proposed amendment, which cannot be misinter- 
preted nor misunderstood, had formed part of our national 
Constitution prior to the War of the Rebellion, that colossal 
and indefensible crime would have been impossible. 

Make this plain democratic provision part of our national 
Constitution, and we shall thus take security of the future, 
that no such rebellion can happen again. 



— 806 — 

Adopt this amendment, and a crisis, such as that which 
happily ended in the expedient of the Electoral Commission 
of 1877, will never confront us thereafter. 

Adopt it, and the House of Representatives will never 
ag-ain be the theatre of intrig-ue for the election of a Presi- 
dent. 

Adopt it, and the menace of a solid South, and of pivotal 
States in the North, will nevermore be known in our history. 

And all citizens of the United States in each State will 
have the right, which oug-ht to be secured to fhem in a 
democratic republic, of nominating" and electing their Presi- 
dent by a direct vote of the duly qualified electors by ballot, 
without the intervention of national nominating" conventions, 
State legislatures, a Colleg"e of Electors or the House of 
Representatives. 

Adopt the amendments providing- for the nomination and 
election of Senators of the United States, and Representatives 
in Cong-ress, and no State or district in a State will have 
cause to blush for the character or ability of her representa- 
tives in either House of the Congress at Washington. 

Before the colossal political power which such a consti- 
tution will secure, and such a g"overnment represent, we may 
well pause and ask ourselves, "What of the future ? " With 
a population such as I estimate within fifty years of one 
hundred and sixt3'-one millions or more, speaking" the same 
languag-e and having" a common interest and a common 
destin}', represented by an indissoluble Union, whose sov- 
ereig"nty resides in the whole people as a unit, and not in 
territorial subdivisions called "sovereign States," we shall 
present to the world, as I see it, the freest, the strongest and 
the best form of democratic representative g-overnment on 
earth. 

So thoroughly- am I impressed with the mag"nitude of 
this subject, and, after years of reflection, so thoroughly' 
does it command the approval of my judgment, that, had I 
the time, it would be an easy and welcome task to extend this 
address into a volume. What I now present has been written 
in odd hours, as time and the cares of an exacting business 
permitted. 

In submitting thus briefly, these observations for dis- 



— 807 — 

cussion by the Ohio Society of New York, I feci that I but 
discharg-e the duty of a citizen, by contributing something* 
to a subject on which many of the most thoughtful men in 
this country are now thinking, to the end that I may aid in 
calling- public attention to the changes which now confront 
us — changes which I believe demand the serious considera- 
tion of the foremost citizens of all parties and all sections. 

To those of my faith and sanguine temperament this 
impending- chang-e represents the life and hope and onward 
march of the nation, and is the natural outgrowth of that 
unrest which in the history of mankind always precedes great 
reforms. 

To me, it is the Spirit of Progress born of the aspira- 
tions of a great people for an indissoluble Union and a demo- 
cratic continental commonwealth. 

As I watch, this spirit points the way to a higher and 
broader conception of one's rights and duties as a citizen- 
In its inspiring- presence our prophets and leaders are thrilled 
with an enthusiasm which g-lows in face and speech, as they 
direct the advancing- columns of those who are marching in 
the pathway of progress. And all who march abreast and 
battle with them, shall feel that 

"Each epoch hath its work to do, 

Its thought to think, its wrong to right, 
Its leaders and its prophets too — 
Its beacon lamp to trim and light." 



APPENDIX. 

Containing- the history and text of the proposed constitu- 
tional amendment, with sugg-estions for the form of all offi- 
cial ballots — national. State and city, together with census 
statistics for the first one hundred years of the republic. 

. Also map showing- the States and parts of States in 
which the Afro-American will outnumber the whites after 
the year 1940. 



— 808 — 



HISTORY OF THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT. 

It may not be uninteresting- if I g^ive a brief history of 
this constitutional amendment, and the reasons which led 
me to prepare it nearly a quarter of a century ag^o. 

In 1841, when a boy, I visited Washing-ton to see Gen. 
Wm. Henry Harrison inaug-urated President. Before return- 
ing- home, President Harrison died, and I saw John Tj^ler, 
the first Vice-President in our history, inaugurated President 
as provided in the Constitution. 

In less than three months after Mr. Tyler entered upon 
the duties of the presidential office, it began to be quietly 
whispered about among the Democrats of Kentuck}' and 
Southern Ohio, that Tyler (who had been elected Vice- 
President on the ticket with Gen. Harrison by the Whig 
party) " had come over to our side." 

Within a year it was generally suspected that T3-ler had 
formed some kind of a secret alliance with the Calhoun wing 
of the Democratic part}-, and this proved to be true, as is 
evidenced by the history of his administration. 

I was a looker-on in the Democratic National Conven- 
tion which met at Baltimore in 1844. By the favor of Col. 
Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, ex- Vice-President, I had 
a seat on the floor of that Convention with the Kentucky 
delegation. 

More than two-thirds of all the delegates elected to that 
convention had been, when appointed, instructed to vote for 
the renomination of the old ticket, which had been defeated 
by Harrison and Tyler in 1840. 

By intrigue, betraj-al of trust, and deliberate violation 
of instructions on the part of delegates to that convention, 
Mr. Van Buren was defeated, and James K. Polk, of Ten- 
nessee, was nominated and elected President, defeating 
Henry Clay. 

Afterwards, I saw the Electoral College for Ohio meet at 
Columbus and go through the mummery of voting by ballot 
for President and Vice-President. 

The members of the college then appointed one of their 



— 809 — 

own number to carry one of the three certificates of the 
result of that election by the electors in Ohio to Washing"- 
ton. 

To me, it seemed like a solemn farce, and as if each 
member of the CoUeg-e was cog-nizant of the fact. 

These events impressed me deeply and so unfavorably 
that I never thereafter affirmed (as I had been taug-ht to do) 
"that our national Constitution was the perfection of 
human wisdom " ; on the contrar}^ the more I studied it, the 
clearer did its defects and objectionable provisions appear to 
me. 

But the fact must not be forg"otten that the fathers of 
the Constitution were environed on every hand, and that 
only by j-ielding" as they did, to the slave-holding" interests, 
and also to the selfish demands of some of the States, was 
the org-anization of a National Government in 1789 possible. 

If, when the national Constitution was under discussion 
in 1789, its authors had been confronted with the simple 
proposition of framing- a democratic representative g"overn- 
ment and securing* to the people of all the States an equit- 
able distribution of political power, there is no question that 
more than one of the unphilosophical provisions embodied 
in our present Constitution would never have found a place 
in it. 

Instead of occupying- themselves in discussing- practical 
democratic questions, as many of the members of the Con- 
vention of 1789 were pre-eminently qualified to do, the time 
and skill of the ablest men in that remarkable body were 
largely taken up in devising- plans to defeat the petty 
schemes of narrow and selfish men, and to secure harmony of 
views among- some of its impracticable members and adjust 
the supposed conflicting- interests of the larg-er and smaller 
States. 

The practical problem before them was not the best form 
of an ideal democratic republic, with an equitable distribution 
of political power, but the org-anization of a national 
g-overnment that would be accepted and ratified by each of 
the thirteen States. As all know, the Constitution as finally 
adopted could only have been formed by concession and com- 
promise, and all compromise is, of necessity, patchwork. 



— 810 — 

From the daj- I witnessed the inaug-uration of Vice- 
President John Tyler as President, and the defeat of Mr. 
VanBuren in the nominating- convention in Baltimore in 
1844, I have been opposed to the caucus and convention sys- 
tem, national, State and city; as also the machinery by which 
the President is now elected, and in favor of the abolition of 
the office of Vice-President. 

Instead of electing- a President as now provided by law 
and the Constitution, and by the convention system to which 
custom and usag-e has g-iven the force of law, I propose that 
there shall be no Vice-President and that the nomination and 
election of a President shall be by a direct vote by ballot of 
the qualified electors in all the States; without the interven- 
tion of national conventions, a Colleg-e of Electors, or the 
House of Representatives. 

The amendment as now presented (except one or two 
immaterial chang-es) was prepared b}- me during- the time 
the patchwork known as the Fourteenth Amendment was 
under consideration, as it now appears in the Constitution. 

In my orig-inal draft, but three members of Cong-ress 
were apportioned to each cong-ressional district in States 
entitled to six members or more. In the draft now submitted, 
not less than four nor more than five members are allotted to 
each cong-ressional district in States entitled to eig-ht mem- 
bers or more. 

As a practical solution of the difficulties which environ 
us, and for securing- an equitable distribution of political 
power, national, State and municipal, the plan has steadily 
g-rown upon me for twenty years or more, and I am confident 
that substantially as herein outlined it will at no distant day 
be approved by a majority of all parties in this country. 

When first prepared, I submitted it (as was m}- custom 
with any important work which I attempted, while in Con- 
g-ress) to my personal friend, Mr. Beaman, of Michig-an, for 
his Icg-al criticism and sug-g-estion. After his approval, it 
was printed and submitted to Governor Chase and to Sumner, 
Wade and Howard of the Senate, and to Thaddeus Stevens 
and Henry Winter Davis of the House. 

Their g-eneral judg-ment was, that while the reconstruc- 
tion measures were before us and the controvcrsv with the 



— 811 — 

acting President (Andrew Johnson) was occupying- the atten- 
tion of Cong-ress, the country was not prepared for chang-es 
so far-reaching- as I proposed, and they advised me to confine 
my amendment to the nomination and election of the Presi- 
dent by a direct vote of the people, and to abolishing* the 
office of Vice-President (to which they all, at that time, 
heartily assented), and to secure a modification of the veto 
power. Instead of a Colle'g-e of Deputies, such as I proposed, 
for the choice of a President in case of a vacancy in that 
of&ce, they sug-g-ested that the power should be conferred on 
the Senate and House in joint convention, each Senator and 
Representative having- one vote. These members of the 
Senate and House were representative men and my seniors in 
3'ears and political experience. After conferring- with them, 
I finally accepted their judg-ment, and in accordance with 
their sug-g-estions prepared a modified form of my orig-inal 
plan, omitting- the provision for the creation of the National 
Colleg-e of Deputies, the election of United States Senators 
by the people, and for proportional, or equitabi^e represen- 
tation. 

The modified plan as then prepared, and the speech 
which I made in the House in support of it, may be found in 
the Congressional Gi.obe for the second session of the 
Fortieth Cong-ress, Vol. 3, page 2713. 

Had I been re-elected to Congress in 1868, I should have 
presented this amendment as originally prepared and as now 
submitted for your consideration. 

Failing to be re-elected, I resolved to present it through 
some representative member of the Senate or House on the 
first occasion when I thought public opinion would warrant 
the probability of a favorable reception of it. 

When the Electoral Commission of 1877 declared Mr. 
Hayes the duly elected President, I believed that the time 
had come, when the statesmen of all parties would be forced 
by public opinion to give prompt consideration to some such 
plan as mine, for the election of the President, to the end 
that another perilous contest such as that adjusted by that 
extraordinary commission, should never happen again. 

Accordingly, I went with it to Senator Chandler of 
Michigan, and outlined it to him and urged him, as Chair- 



— 812 — 

man of the National Republican Committee, and the man 
who had done more to elect Mr. Hayes than any other, to 
take the proposed amendment and go to Mr. Hayes with it 
and see if he could not induce him to adopt it, and have him 
in his inaug-ural address present it, and say that he proposed 
to call an extra session of Congress to act upon it, and state 
that on its adoption and ratification as part of the national 
Constitution he would resig-n the Presidenc}^ and submit his 
title to the office to a vote of the people at the first election 
under it. I presented the subject to Mr. Chandler with much 
earnestness, because I felt confident that such a proposition, 
comino- from him at that time, would be acceptable to the 
Republican party and to the great body of Democrats North 
and South, and that some such amendment could be passed by 
Cong-ress and submitted to the States for their ratification, 
which might then have been done within a year. 

I urged that if Mr. Hayes would do this, and the amend- 
ment became part of the national Constitution, that his 
nomination and election would most certainly follow, and 
that he would thus become a marked and historic figure, and 
much more of the same import. 

But Mr. Chandler was in no frame of mind to entertain 
my proposition, nor for that matter, any other. He was in 
fact jubilant and defiant, and in the strongest language ex- 
pressed his determination to stamp out all opposition. 

I have often regretted that I did not, at that time, go 
personally to Mr. Hayes with my amendment, and urge him 
to do as I should have done had I been in his position. 

Since that lost opportunity, I have seen no time for its 
acceptable presentation. The impelling motive which 
prompted me to accept a nomination for Congress last fall 
was, that in such a canvass I might have an opportunity to 
discuss the questions presented in this amendment; and in 
the event of my election, would hold a position from which 
I could legitimately command a hearing on it before the 
country. 

For nearly a quarter of a century I have regarded the 
affirmative settlement of the questions involved in this 
amendment, as of vastly more importance to our future 
peace and national unity, than any question growing out of 



— 813 — 

tariff reform, or silver coinage, or any ordinary economic or 
commercial leg-islation. But during- my ten days' canvass 
last fall, I found that public opinion was entirely engrossed 
with tariff discussion and the free coinage of silver, and 
that the time was not opportune for the public discussion of 
questions involving important constitutional reforms. So I 
now come with this amendment, which I have guarded for 
years with paternal care, and present it for the consideration 
of the members of the "Ohio Society of New York," and 
through them, to the judgment of all who may do me the 
honor to read it. 

The adoption of this proposed amendment will neces- 
sitate the omissions and changes indicated below by small 
capitals in Articles One and Two of our present Constitu- 
tion. 

Article One, when amended, will read as follows: 



ARTICLE I. 

Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall 
be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall 
consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. 

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be com- 
posed of members chosen every second year by the people of 
the several States, and the electors in each State shall have. 
the qualifications requisite under This Constitution To vote 
FOR President op the United States. 

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have 
attained the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years 
a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when 
elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be 
chosen. 

When vacancies happen in the representation from any 
State, THE College of Deputies for such State shall fill 
SUCH vacancies, until the next regular election for 
Representatives in Congress. 

The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker 
and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeach- 
ment. 



— 814 — 

[ B^" Amendments to Article One when adopted will be 
inserted here as part of Section 2.] 

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be 
composed of two Senators for each State, and shall, be 

CHOSEN BY BALLOT BY THE QUALIFIED ELECTORS THEREOF, for 

six years, and each Senator shall have one vote. 

When vacancies happen in the Senate from any State b}- 
resig-nations or otherwise, the College of Deputies for 
SUCH State shall fill the vacancy until the next 

REGULAR ELECTION FOR SENATOR. 

No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained 
the ag-e of thirty 3'ears, and been nine 3'ears a citizen of the 
United States, and who shall not when elected be an inhabi- 
tant of that State for which he shall be chosen. 

The Senate shall choose its own presiding- and other 
officers. 

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeach- 
ments. When sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath 
or affirmation; and no person shall be convicted without the^ 
concurrence of two-thirds of the Senators present and vot- 
ing.* 

Judgment in case of impeachment shall not extend 
further than to removal from office and disqualification to 
hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the 
United States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be 
.liable and subject to indictment, trial, judg-ment and punish- 
ment, according- to law. 

Section S. A majority of each House shall constitute 
a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn 
from day to da}-, and may be authorized to compel the attend- 
ance of absent members in such manner and under such 
penalties as each House maj' provide. 

The fifth section of this article is amended by omitting 
the words "Each House shall be the judge of the election 
returns, and qualifications of its own members," and thus 
takes from the Senate and House the power, now often 



'•'The provision for the impeachment of the President is stricken out. 

Jefferson properly characterized that provision of the Constitution as a " scare- 
crow," and as all will remember, the attempt to impeach Andrew Johnson ended in a 
national farce. 



— 815 — 

exercised by a partisan majority, of excluding- persons who 
present duly authenticated certificates of election, and admit 
to seats persons who have not been elected. 

The proposed amendment prescribes the " qualifications ' 
of Senators and Representatives; and the Circuit or District 
Court of the United States in the State or District where any 
contest may arise is authorized and required to determine 
the validity of all election returns where a contest is made, 
and from such determination there can be no appeal to the 
Senate or House of Representative 

All clauses relative to the Vice-President are stricken 
out, and such parts of Article One not above quoted down to 
the end of Section Five. 

Section One of Article Two is stricken out, except the 
clauses which provide that " the President shall be a natural 
born citizen of the United States and shall have attained the 
ag-e of thirtj'-five years," and "shall at stated -times receive 
for his services a compensation, which shall not be increased 
or diminished during- the period for which he shall have been 
elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other 
emolument from the United States, or any of them." 

"Before he enter on the execution of his of&ce he shall 
take the following- oath or affirmation :" 

"I do solemnly swear (or aflfirm) that I will faithfully 
execute the office of President of the United States, an4 will 
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the 
Constitution of the United States." 

Sections Two, Three and Four of Article Two remain 
unchang-ed, except the word Vice-President is stricken out of 
Section 4. 

Article Twelve of the amendments is entirely eliminated. 

The presidential term is made six years. 

The paragraphs above quoted will advise the reader of 
the chang-es necessary in our present Constitution to make it 
conform to the amendment as herein proposed. 



—816 — 



PROPOSED AMENDMENT OF THE NATIONAL CON- 
STITUTION. 

Providing- for the nomination and election, bj a di- 
rect vote of the duly qualified electors in the several States, 
of a President of the United States, and Senators and 
Representatives of the several States in Cong-ress, and for 
the creation and election of a National Colleg-e of Deputies, 
in the several States. 

Said Collegfe of Deputies, when duly chosen and org-anized 
in the several States, and at the seat of g-overnment of the 
United States, shall be charg-ed with the authority and duty 
of conducting" all national elections in their respective 
States, and with the power and duty of filling- such vacancies 
as may from time to time happen in the office of Presi- 
dent of the United States and Senators and Representatives 
in Cong-ress and members of the National Colleg-e of Deputies 
for any State. 

AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE ONE. — WHO SHALL BE ELECTORS. 

All native-born male citizens of the United States, of 
the ag-e of twenty-one (21) years and upwards, and each 
person of like ag-e who shall have been duly naturalized, in 
pursuance of the laws of the United States, and who shall 
have been a resident of the State in which he may offer to 
vote for one year next preceding- any election herein provided 
for, shall be an elector, and qualified to vote in such State 
for the nomination and election of a President of the United 
States, and for Senators and Representatives in the Cong-ress 
of the United States, and for the members of a National 
Colleg-e of Deputies in such State. 

The duly qualified electors in each State shall vote at all 
national elections, under such rules and reg-ulations as 
the Cong-ress may by law prescribe ; provided that no insane 
or idiotic person, nor any person duly convicted of a felony, 
shall be permitted to vote at such elections. 



■817 — 



AMENDMENT TO ARTICLES TWO AND TWEI^VE. — THE MANNER 
OP NOMINATING AND ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 

The executive power shall be vested in a President of 
the United States. The term for which he shall be elected 
shall be six years. He shall enter upon the duties of his 
office at 12 o'clock m., on the fourth Monday in the April 
next succeeding" his election in November. 

No person nominated and elected President by the voters 
of the several States, as herein provided, shall be eligible 
for re-election. 

The year in which the first election for the nomination 
and choice of a President shall take place, after the ratifi- 
cation of this amendment, shall be prescribed by the Con- 
gress, and special provision shall be njade by law for the 
appointment of such officers as may be required, to conduct 
all national elections, in their respective States, until the 
College of Deputies herein provided for shall have been duly 
chosen. 

The President shall be nominated and elected as follows: 

On the first Tuesday of Aug-ust, in the year appointed 
by the Cong-ress for the first election, and on the first Tues- 
day of Aug-ust every six years thereafter, the electors quali- 
fied as hereinbefore provided shall assemble in their respec- 
tive States, as the Congress may prescribe by law, and vote 
by ballot for the nomination of a citizen of the United States 
for President, eligible under this Constitution. Such election 
for the nomination, or for the election of a President, shall 
not be held in any room in which an election is being- con- 
ducted on the same day for State or local officers, in such 
State. But no voting- district or precinct in any State shall 
be larg-er in territorial extent than districts designated by 
State law for State elections. 

The College of Deputies in each State charged by law 

with the conduct of such nominating- elections for President 

shall make distinct lists of all candidates voted for at such 

elections, tog-ether with the number of votes cast in their 

52 



— 818 — 

respective States for each candidate, which list they shall 
of&cially sig-n, seal and certify, in triplicate, and within 
twenty (20) days after such nominating- election in each State, 
they shall transmit, in such form and manner as the Congress 
may b_y law prescribe, one cop}' of such certified returns to 
the chairman of the National Colleg-e of Deputies, at the seat 
of g-overnment of the United States; one copy to the Secre- 
tary of the Interior of the United States, and one cop}- to the 
Secretary of State for the State in which they, as of&cials, 
reside. 

The Chairman of the National College of Deputies, and 
the chief clerk of such colleg-e, together with the Secretary 
of the Interior of the United States, shall meet at the scat of 
government of the United States on the first Tuesday in 
September, at 12 o'clock m., after each nominating- election 
for President on the preceding- first Tuesday in Aug-ust, 
and shall, in the presence of such persons as the Cong-ress 
may by law direct, open all the certificates from each State 
containing a list of the candidates voted for and the 
votes cast for each at such nominating election, and the}-, or 
an3^ two of them, shall within the time fixed by law, jointly 
canvass, certify and officially publish the result, stating- the 
number of votes cast for each candidate for President in the 
several States, and the total vote for each in all the States. 

THE ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT. 

On the first Tuesday of November, after each nomina- 
ting- election for President, the qualified electors shall again 
assemble in their respective States, and from the list of can- 
didates officially certified as having- the highest votes, not ex- 
ceeding four (4) on the list voted for, at such nominating 
election on the first Tuesday of August preceding, the elec- 
tors shall by ballot choose a President, and the person hav- 
ing the greatest number of votes cast at such election for 
President, in all the States, shall be the President. 

The persons in each State charged by law with the con- 
duct of the election appointed for the first Tuesday oi 
November, for the choice of a President, shall make a dis- 
tinct list of all the candidates voted for at such elections, 



— 819 — 

log-ether with the number of votes cast in their respective 
States for each, which list they shall sig-n, seal and officially 
certify in triplicate, and within thirty days after such elec- 
tion they shall transmit, under such regulations as the Con- 
gress may by law prescribe, one copy to the Chairman of the 
National College of Deputies, at the seat of government of 
the United States ; one copy to the Secretary of the Interior 
of the United States, and one copy to the Secretary of State 
for the State in which they reside. 

The Chairman or the acting Chairman of the National 
College of Deputies, and the chief clerk or acting chief clerk 
of such college, together with the Secretary or acting Secre- 
tary of the Interior of the United States, shall meet at the 
seat of government of the United States, at such place as 
the Congress may by law provide, on the second Tuesday in 
December, at 12 o'clock m., after each election for President, 
and shall in the presence of such members of the College of 
Deputies as may be present, and such other persons as the 
Congress ma}?- by law authorize, open all the certificates con- 
taining the official returns of the votes cast for President on the 
preceding first Tuesday of November, and they or any two 
of them shall forthwith jointly certify and publish the total 
number of votes cast for each candidate, and officially declare 
the person having the highest number of votes to be the 
duly elected President of the United States for six years from 
and after the fourth Monday in the April next succeeding 
such election in November. 

But no Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, nor Judge of any Circuit or District Court of the 
United States, nor Judge of the Supreme Court or highest 
appellate court in any State, shall be eligible to be elected 
President of the United States. 

The President of the United States may at any time 
resign his office and appoint a day when his resignation shall 
take effect, or he may designate that it shall take effect on a 
given day after his successor shall have been chosen by the 
College of Deputies. And the Congress shall provide by 
law for such contingency. 



— 820 — 



THE NATIONAI. COLLEGE OP DEPUTIES. 

A Colleg-e of Deputies, composed of members from each 
State, equal in number to its Senators and Representatives 
in the Cong-ress of the United States, shall be chosen every 
six (6) years by the people of the several States; and the 
voters in each State authorized to choose members of the 
Colleg-e of Deputies shall have the qualifications requisite to 
vote for President of the United States. 

Members of the Colleg-e of Deputies shall be elected for 
the term of six j-ears, and their term of office shall begin on 
the first Tuesday in December after their election in No- 
vember. 

No person shall be a member of the Colleg-e of Deputies 
who shall not have attained the ag-e of thirty years, and who 
shall not have been a voter for seven yez.TS, in the State for 
which he shall be chosen. 

All authority herein granted for the choice of a Presi- 
dent of the United States, to fill any vacancy which may 
happen, by death or otherwise, in the office of President, 
shall be vested in the National Colleg-e of Deputies, as here- 
in provided. 

The members of the College of Deputies for each State 
shall be nominated and voted for in States and cong-ressional 
districts of each State as herein provided. 

The duly qualified electors in each State shall be entitled 
to nominate and to elect two members of the Colleg-e of 
Deputies for the State at large, who shall be designated " the 
Senatorial Deputies." 

The members of the College of Deputies to which each 
State is entitled shall be elected on the same ballot with the 
President of the United States and Senators and Repre- 
sentatives in Cong-ress. 

In addition to the two Senatorial Deputies, the voters in 
each State entitled to seven or to less than seven Representa- 
livcs in Congress, shall nominate and elect on a g-eneral 
ticket for the State at large, one member of the College of 
Deputies for each Representative in Cong-ress allotted to 
such State. 



— 821 — 

In States entitled to eight Representatives in Congress, 
or to an}" additional number, the members of the College of 
Deputies shall be nominated and elected in districts corre- 
sponding to the congressional districts in such States of not 
less than four nor more than five members each. 

In States entitled to one and not to exceed Two addi- 
tional members of the College of Deputies, to correspond with 
the number of Representatives in Congress, not included in 
any district, such additional member or members shall be 
voted for and nominated and elected for the State at large, 
on the same ballot with the two Senatorial Deputies and the 
members to be elected in districts. 

On the first Tuesday in December after each election for 
members of the College of Deputies, the persons duly chosen 
from each State shall be convened at the seat of government 
of the United States, and they shall then organize by choos- 
ing one of their own number for chairman, and he shall hold 
such office for the term of six years. 

The College of Deputies shall choose a Chief Clerk and 
Sergeant-at-Arms, who shall hold their offices for six 5^ears, 
and the Chief Clerk and Sergeant-at-Arms shall appoint 
such additional clerks and assistants as the Congress may, by 
law, authorize. 

In case of the death, resignation or removal of the Chair- 
man, the Chief Clerk or other officers of the National College 
of Deputies, such vacancy for the unexpired term shall be 
filled as may be provided by law. 

In national assemblies, a majority of all the members of 
the National College of Deputies, and in State assemblies, 
a majority of all the Deputies for such State, shall be requi- 
site to make a quorum for the transaction of business, but a 
less number than a quorum in each may adjourn from day to 
day, and the}" may compel the attendance of absent members 
in such manner and under such penalties as they shall pre- 
scribe in rules for their own government, 

A member of the National or of the State Assembly of 
Deputies, who shall violate such rules, may be suspended or 
expelled, by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the Depu- 
ties present in either body. . 

A Deputy who may have been suspended or expelled 



— 822 — 

from his office by an Assembly of Deputies for any State, 
may appeal to the District or Circuit Court of the United 
States, for such State, and the Court shall grant him a sum- 
mary hearing-, and promptly determine the questions involved 
in such appeal. 

If a Deputy shall be suspended or expelled from his office 
by the National College of Deputies, such Deputy may appeal 
to any Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and the determination of such appeals by the District or Cir- 
cuit Court of the United States, in any State, or by any Jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court of the United States, shall be final, 
touching the matters in controversy. 

The Congress shall by law provide for the assembling of 
the members of the College of Deputies for each State at 
their respective State Capitols ^vithin thirty (30) days after 
their election, and prescribe the manner in which they shall 
organize by selecting one of their own number for Chairman, 
together with a Chief Clerk and Scrgeant-at-Arms, who shall 
not be members of the College of Deputies, and each of whom 
shall hold such office for six 3-ears. 

The College of Deputies for each State shall be charged 
with the conduct of all national elections in their respective 
States for the nomination and election of the President, 
Senators of the United States, Representatives in Congress 
and members of the College of Deputies. 

The Chairman of the College of Deputies in each State 
shall give public notice of all national elections, as the Con- 
gress may by law prescribe, for the nomination and election 
of the President, Senators and Representatives in Congress 
and for members of the College of Deputies, and they shall 
be the custodians of all election returns of such State, for 
President, Senators and Representatives in Congress and 
members of the College of Deputies. 

The members of the National College of Deputies and 
the Chairman and Chief Clerk and such officers as they shall 
be authorized by law to appoint, and the Chairman of the 
College of Deputies 'for each State, together with the Chief 
Clerk and such other officers as the}' may be authorized b}' 
law to appoint in each State for the conduct of national 
elections, shall receive a compensation for their services to be 



— 823 — 

fixed b}^ law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United 
States. 

Kxcept for offenses such as the Congress shall prescribe, 
the members of the Colleg-e of Deputies shall be privileg-ed from 
arrest, or from service of leg-al process of any kind, dur- 
ing" attendance at any meeting- of their body in any State, 
or when convened at the seat of g"overnment of the United 
States, for the choice of a President, or when g"oing" to or re- 
turning- from the same. 

In case of the death of the President, or of his resig-na- 
tion, disability or removal from office, the Secretary of State 
of the United States, if there be one, and if not, then such 
member of the Cabinet as the Cong^ress may desig-nate by 
law, shall act as President until a successor to fill the vacancy 
shall have been dul}^ chosen and qualified. 

The acting- President shall by proclamation convene the 
members of the Colleg-e of Deputies from all the States at the 
seat of g-overnment of the United States within thirty days 
from the date of an}' vacanc}' in the office of President, and 
the members of the College of Deputies shall assemble in 
such hall or building- as the Cong-ress may by law prescribe, 
and forthwith proceed to the choice of a citizen of the United 
States qualified under this Constitution for the office of Pres- 
ident to fill out the unexpired term. 

On the assembling- of the Colleg-e of Deputies in pursu- 
ance of the proclamation of the acting- President, the Chair- 
man of the Colleg-e, if he be present, and if not, then the 
senior member of the Colleg-e of Deputies, shall call the mem- 
bers to order, and direct the clerk of the body to call the 
States alphabetically and the roll of members in alphabetical 
order. A majority of all the members elected and qualified 
shall be necessary for a quorum to transact business. 

On the assembling- of a quorum, in the absence of the 
Chairman, the Colleg-e shall select a Chairman pro TEm., and 
at once proceed to the choice of a President to fill the vacancy 
for the residue of the unexpired term as herein prescribed, 
and no other business shall be in order, until a President 
shall have been chosen. 

On the call of the roll each member of the Collesfe shall 



— 824 — 

rise in his place, name his choice, and vote viva voce for 
President, and each member shall have one vote. 

If any person shall receive on any roll-call a majority of 
all the votes given for President, he shall be declared by the 
Chairman of the Colleg-e of Deputies the duly elected Presi- 
dent of the United States for the residue of the unexpired 
term. 

The members of the Colleg-e of Deputies, after org-aniz- 
ing-, shall vote for President at least once each day until a 
President is chosen. 

No member of the Colleg^e shall speak more than once on 
any subject or motion on the same da}', nor more than ten 
minutes except by unanimous consent. 

If no person shall receive a majority of the votes given 
on the first roll-call, the roll shall again be called, and from 
the persons having the highest vote on the list, not exceeding 
five of those voted for on the first roll-call, the college shall 
proceed to choose a President. 

If no person shall receive a majority of all the votes 
given on the second roll-call, the College shall again pro- 
ceed to vote a third time, and from the persons having the 
highest vote on the list, not exceeding four of those voted for 
on the second roll-call, the College shall secure a President. 

If no person shall have a majority of all the votes given 
on the third roll-call, the College shall proceed to vote a 
fourth time, and from the persons having the highest vote, 
not exceeding three of those voted for on the third roll-call, 
the College shall choose a President, and the person having 
the highest vote on the fourth roll-call, shall be declared by 
the Chairman to be elected, to fill the vacancy for the residue 
of the unexpired term. 

In the event that no person shall receive a pluralit}- vote 
on the fourth roll-call, the roll shall at intervals of not ex- 
ceeding one day again be called, until one of the three candi- 
dates highest on the list shall receive more votes than either 
of his competitors. 

The Congress shall have power to enforce this amend- 
ment by appropriate legislation. 



825- 



THE NOMINATION AND BISECTION OF UNITED STATES SENA- 
TORS. 

Senators of the United States shall be nominated and 
chosen by the electors of each State qualified to vote under 
this Constitution for President, as follows : 

On the first Tuesday of Aug"ust next preceding- the ex- 
piration of the term of any Senator, the electors duly quali- 
fied to vote for Senator shall assemble in their respective 
States and counties, as provided by law for the election of 
President and Representatives in Cong-ress, and vote by bal- 
lot for the nomination of a candidate for Senator of the 
United States. 

All nominating' elections for Senator shall be held in each 
State at the time and places in which Representatives in Con- 
g-ress for such State are nominated and elected, and at no 
other time. 

The Cong-ress shall provide by law the manner in 
which the members of the Colleg-e of Deputies and the offi- 
cials charg-ed in each State with the conduct of such nominat- 
ing- elections for Senators of the United States shall conduct 
the same, and such officers in each county shall make distinct 
lists of all the persons voted for at such election for Senator, 
tog-ether with the number of votes cast in the several counties 
for each candidate, which list they shall sig-n, seal and offi- 
cially certify in triplicate, and within ten (10) days after such 
nominating- elections they shall transmit, in such form and 
manner as the Cong-ress may prescribe by law, one copy of 
such certified election returns to the Chairman of the Col- 
lege of Deputies for such State at the Capitol thereof, one 
copy to the Secretary of State for .such State, and one copy 
to the clerk of the county of which they are residents. 

The Chairman and Chief Clerk of the Colleg-e of Deputies 
for each State, tog-ether with the Secretary of State for each 
State (if there be such an officer, and ie not, then such per- 
son as the State may appoint), shall be in session at the Capi- 
tol thereof, on the fourth Tuesday of Aug-ust, at twelve 
o'clock M., after each nominating- election for Senator of the 



— 826 — 

United States, on the previous first Tuesday of Augfust, and 
the}' or any two of them shall, in the presence of such per- 
sons as the Congress may by law desig-nate, jointly canvass, 
certify and officially publish the result, stating- the total 
number of votes cast in the State for each candidate. 

On the first Tuesday of November following- such nomi- 
nating- election for United States Senator the qualified elec- 
tors in such State shall ag-ain assemble, at the places ap- 
pointed by law, in their respective counties, and from the 
candidates officially certified as having the highest vote for 
Senator, not exceeding- four (4) on the list of those voted for, 
at such nominating- election on the preceding- first Tuesda}' 
of August, shall choose by ballot a Senator, and the person 
having- the g-reatest number of votes cast for Senator at said 
election in such State shall be the Senator. The term of 
office of each Senator shall begin on the fourth ISIonday in 
April, at 12 o'clock m., succeeding- his election in November. 
The Chairman and Chief Clerk of the College of Deputies 
for each State shall canvass and certify the election of 
Senators and Representatives in Cong-ress and members of 
the Colleg-e of Deputies. 

The Congress shall have power to enforce this amend- 
ment by appropriate legislation. 



THE NOMINATION AND BISECTION OF REPRESENTATIVES IN 

CONGRESS. 

Representatives in Congress shall hold their office for 
the term of two years, and shall be nominated and chosen 
by the electors in each State qualified b_v law to vote for 
President. 

On the first Tuesday of August (beginning with the 
time appointed by Congress for the nomination and election 
of a President), and every second year thereafter, the elec- 
tors qualified to vote, as hereinbefore provided, shall assemble 
in their respective States and counties, at such places as the 
Congress shall by law direct for the holding of such elec- 
tions, and vote by ballot for the nomination of such number 
of candidates for Representatives in Congress as each elector 



— 827 — 

shall be authorized by law to vote for in such State or dis- 
tricts, or both. 

In a State entitled under any apportionment to seven 
Representatives in Congress, or to less than seven, the duly 
qualified electors thereof shall nominate and elect such 
Representative or Representatives on one g-eneral ticket for 
the State at larg^e. 

If under any apportionment a State shall be entitled to 
eig-ht Representatives in Cong-ress, or to more than eig-ht, the 
Colleg-e of Deputies for that State shall, after each reg-ular 
election for President, divide it into Cong-ressional districts 
of contig-uous territory, of not less than four nor more than 
five members each, and in such manner, that no State which 
may be entitled to two or more such Cong-ressional districts, 
shall elect for the State at larg-e a g-reater number than two 
Representatives in Cong-ress, and such Representatives for 
the State at large shall be nominated and elected on the same 
ballot with the members in each district. And every appor- 
tionment shall be made, by dividing- the total vote for Presi- 
dent in the State by the number of Representatives in Con- 
gress to which each State is by law entitled. 

No Representative district in any State shall be changed 
b}' the College of Deputies thereof until after the next presi- 
dential election, nor until after Congress shall have appor- 
tioned the Representatives among the several States ; but the 
Congress may by law, on the application of one-fourth of 
the College of Deputies in any State, change the districts in 
such State, should such change in the opinion of the Con- 
gress be necessary to secure the minority of the electors 
thereof an equitable representation in Congress in proportion 
to the total vote cast at the last presidential election in such 
State. 

The Congress shall by law prescribe the manner and 
form in which the returns of all elections shall be made for 
the nomination of Senators and Representatives in Congress 
in each State or Congressional Districts in any State ; and the 
result of such nominating elections shall be ofl&cially pub- 
lished in such manner and form as shall be provided by law. 

At such nominating election for Representatives in Con- 
gress, each qualified elector may cumulate his vote and cast 



— 828 — 

all the votes to which he is entitled for one candidate, or for 
more than one, as he may elect. 

On the first Tuesday of November following- such nomi- 
nating- election, the electors in each State qualified to vote 
for Representatives in Cong-ress shall again assemble in 
their respective counties, and from the candidates officially 
certified as having the highest vote on the list of those voted 
for at the nominating election on the preceding- first Tuesday 
of August, not exceeding- four candidates for each Represen- 
tative to be chosen, either in Congressional districts or for a 
State at larg-e, or in both State and districts as the case may 
be, shall choose the number of Representatives in Congress 
for such State or districts, or both, as they may be authorized 
by law to elect ; and the. person or persons having- the highest 
number of votes cast at said election in such State or dis- 
trict, or both, for Representative in Cong-ress, shall be the 
Representative. 

Each elector shall have the right to cumulate his vote 
and cast all the votes to which he is entitled in the district of 
his residence, or for the State at larg-e, or both as he may 
elect, for one candidate, or for more than one candidate, 
under such regulations as the Congress may bylaw prescribe. 

No Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
nor Judg-e of any Circuit or District Court of the United 
States, nor Judg-e of the Supreme Court or highest appellate 
court or court of record in any State, shall be elig-ible to be 
chosen a Senator or Representative in Cong-ress or member of 
the Colleg-e of Deputies. 

MISCELLANEOUS PARAGRAPHS. 

All electors and each org-anized g-roup of electors in the 
several States shall prepare and print their own ballots for 
use at all nominating- elections, in such form and manner as 
the Cong-ress may bylaw prescribe. 

After the result of each nominating election for Presi- 
dent, and for members of the College of Deputies, or for Sen- 
ators and Representatives in Congress, shall have been de- 
clared, the College of Deputies for each State shall cause to 
be prepared and printed all official ballots, and shall furnish 



— 829 — 

such ballots to the electors thereof, free of cost to them, as 
the Cong-ress shall by law direct, and said of&cial ballots 
shall be the onl}- legal ballot to be used at any final election 
in November. 

Any elector or gfroup of electors in any State or district 
shall select from the candidates officially declared as herein- 
before provided to be duly nominated for President or Senator 
or Representatives in Congress, or for members of the Col- 
lege of Deputies, and from no others, the names of such 
person or persons as he or they may desire to vote for at the 
final election in November, not exceeding the number of Rep- 
resentatives in Congress or members of the College of Depu- 
ties authorized by lav^^ to be elected by any constituency. 
And the names of all candidates on any national ticket shall 
be printed on a plain white paper ballot, as the Congress may 
by law direct. 

In case two or more candidates for nomination to any 
office shall receive an equal number of votes at such nominat- 
ing election, the Congress shall provide by law the manner of 
determining which of the candidates shall have his name 
printed on the official ballot. 

In case of the death, resignation or disability of any Sen- 
ator of the United States, or Representative in Congress, or 
member of the College of Deputies, the College of Deputies 
for the State in which such vacancy may happen shall, on 
receiving official notification thereof, be convened at the Cap- 
itol of such State and vote to fill such vacancy, in the manner 
prescribed for filling vacancies in the office of President, as 
the Congress may by law prescribe. 

The person so appointed shall be a resident of the State 
and district in which such vacancy shall have happened, and 
he shall, when appointed, be a member of the same party to 
which the Senator or Representative or Deputy belonged, 
whose vacancy is to be filled. 

All appointments made by the College of Deputies, in any 
State, shall be for the residue of the unexpired term. 

The College of Deputies for each State shall once in six 
years, at least thirty days prior to the time fixed in this Con- 
stitution for the nomination of candidates for President, cause 
a registration to be made of all electors in the several States, 



— 830 — 

duly qualified to vote for President, and shall provide for 
verif3'ing" and correcting* such national reg-istration thirty 
days prior to each election for the nomination of Senators 
and Representatives in Cong-ress. 

Offenses committed ag-ainst the peaceful conduct of na- 
tional elections, by the inhabitants of any State, or ag-ainst 
the persons of voters when going" to or returning- from such 
elections, or ag-ainst the members of the Colleg-e of Deputies 
for such State, or ag-ainst any official charg-ed b}- law with 
the conduct of such elections, shall, on trial and conviction 
before any District or Circuit Court of the United States 
for such State, be punished as the Cong-ress ma}^ by law pre- 
scribe. 

The Cong-ress shall by law provide the manner in which 
elections shall be conducted for President and Senators and 
Representatives in Cong-ress, and for members of the Colleg-e 
of Deputies in each State, and prescribe for the counting- and 
officially declaring- and certifying- the result of such vote at 
each election. 

If a citizen who has been elected a member of the College 
of Deputies for any State, shall refuse or neg-lect to qualif}-, 
or after qualifying-, shall refuse or neg-lect to discharg-e the 
duties of his office, as prescribed by law, any one or more 
electors may file a petition before any Judg-e of the District 
or Circuit Court of the United States in such State, asking* 
for an order directing- such Deputy to appear forthwith and 
show cause why he should not be removed from his office, or 
why the office should not be declared vacant. 

In case such Deputy should fail or refuse to obey the 
process of (^^^ourt, or its order, he shall be summaril}^ removed 
from his office by the Court ; and may, in addition to such re- 
moval from office, be punished, as for contempt, by fine or 
imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the Court. 

In case of a contest touching- the conduct and returns of 
an election in any State under this Constitution for President 
or Senator of the United States, or Representatives in Con- 
g-ress, or for members of the CoUeg-e of Deputies, the matter 
in controversy shall be immediately heard and determined by 
the Circuit or District Court of the United States for the 
district and State in which such controversy arose, in such 



— 831 — 

manner as the Congress may provide by law, and from the 
decision of such Court touching- the matters in controversy 
there shall be no appeal. • 

The Secretary of the Interior and such oflB.cers as the 
Cong-ress may by law desig^nate shall be authorized and re- 
quired every six years to determine and officially to announce 
the number of Representatives in Congress to which each 
•State is entitled under each new apportionment. Such repre- 
sentation to be determined by assig^ning- to each State such 
proportion of the number of Representatives fixed by law as 
the number of the votes cast for President, at the election 
next preceding- in such State, bears to the total number of 
votes so cast in all the States. But each State shall have at 
least ONE Representative. 

The qualified electors in the District of Columbia and in 
each of the duly org"anized Territories of the United States, 
shall have the right to vote at all elections for the nomina- 
tion and election of President of the United States. 

The Cong-ress may provide by law that a deleg-ate elected 
in any duly org-anized Territory, which contains a popula" 
tion equal to one-half that required under any apportion- 
ment for one Representative in Congress, shall have secured 
to him all the privileg"es of a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, including- the rig-ht to vote. 

The Cong-ress shall by law define specifically in what the 
term "inability of the President to discharg-e the powers and 
duties of his office " shall consist; and in case of such " ina- 
bility " happening-, may by a concurrent vote of two- 
thirds of both the Senate and House of Representatives, 
suspend the President from the function of his office during- 
such inability, or may by a like vote of the Senate and House 
remove him from office because of such inability. 

All amendments which shall be proposed to this Consti- 
tution, by the Cong-ress, or by any duly authorized constitu- 
tional convention, shall be submitted to the qualified voters 
of the United States residing- in the several States, for their 
ratification or rejection. 

Such submission shall be at any national election when 
Representatives in Congress are chosen, and a majority of 
all the votes sfiven at such election for and against such 



— 832 — 



amendment or amendments, shall be nccessar}' for its ratifi- 
cation as part of this Constitution. 

• The Congress shall have power to enforce the several 
provisions of this amendment b}' appropriate leg"islation. 



MEMORANDUM, 



First. — The stability and safety of democratic g-overn- 
ment, both national and State, depend so larg-eh' on their 
clearly defined powers, that the Constitutions of each must 
of necessit}' limit the power to be exercised, and specifically 
define the manner in which all branches of the several de- 
partments of each shall be administered. 

This fact is universall}' recognized in all our modern 
State constitutions. The constitutions of Ohio and New 
York contain nearly Two and one-fourth times the number- 
of words found in the national Constitution, while the consti- 
tution of California will exceed it in leng-th more than three 
times. 

Our fathers, when framing- the national Constitution, 
attempted to settle and define in concise lang-uag-e the princi- 
ples on which the National Government should be founded. 

After a hundred years, their descendants are waking- up 
to the necessity of demanding- that the principles on which 
the National Government must be administered shall be 
more clearly and intcllig-cntly defined. That which has ob- 
tained in all our State constitutions, has become a necessity 
in our national Constitution. This is all the answer that 
needs be given to the objections, which many will doubtless 
make to the leng-th of m}'- proposed amendment. 

As orig-inally drafted, there was in this amendment a 
clause which provided, that a majority of all the duly quali- 
fied voters in any State mig-ht abolish their State g-overn- 
ments and, with the consent of Congress, unite the whole or 
any part of the territory of such State with one or more 
adjacent States, or, that they might be remanded to a Terri- 



torial condition, whenever its people determined, for any 
cause, that they no long-er desired to support a State g-overn- 
ment. 

That clause is omitted in the amendment as herewith 
submitted, for the reason, that during- the reconstruction 
period, immediately after the War of the Rebellion, the 
practical working- of the Constitution taught us that a ma- 
jority of the electors in any State could, as they in fact did 
in all the rebel States, abolish constitutional State govern- 
ments, and that Congress had no power, except force, to 
compel a majority of the people in any State to maintain a 
State government and elect Senators and Representatives to 
Congress, and vote for electors of President and Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

When such a condition obtains in any State, the sover- 
eignt}^ of the nation over such people and territory remains 
unchanged and unquestioned, under the Constitution, as it 
is — and therefore such an amendment is not now required. 

The suggestion made by Mr. Lincoln, during the war, 
' 'that whenever one-tenth of the voters in any State which had 
abolished their constitutional State governments, and united 
with other rebellious States in organizing the so-called con- 
federate government, should signify their desire to establish 
constitutional State governments, in subordination to the 
national Constitution, that they should be authorized by 
Congress to do so," was a proposition so objectionable to the 
majority that it was, after a brief discussion, abandoned, 
and the sovereignty of the nation over all citizens residing 
in the rebellious States was fully and distinctly affirmed 
and recognized, in the plan of reconstruction adopted by 
Congress. 

Of the defects of that plan, I have neither the time nor 
the disposition to say a single word. 

It will be observed — in case a majority of the voters in 
any State should determine to alter or abolish their State 
governments in the form and manner prescribed in their 
State constitutions, and to ask Congress to establish for 
them a Territorial government instead — that, under my pro- 
posed amendment, the citizens of such Territor}^ would have 
53 



— 834 — 

secured to them the rig-ht to vote for President of the United 
States and for at least one Representative in Cong-ress. 

Second. — This plan provides that, at all November elec- 
tions, the of&cial ballots must contain the names of candidates 
for every of&ce to be elected, and each party or g"roup of 
electors sufficiently numerous in any State or district in a 
State to demand under the law the printing- and the distribu- 
tion of official ballots by the Colleg-e of Deputies must make 
up a complete ticket by selecting-, from among- the four 
HIGHEST nominated for any office at the preliminary election 
in Aug-ust, a candidate for ever^'- office to be elected, for the 
State or district in November. 

This provision is important, because it enables ever}^ 
elector when cumulating- his vote, or when substituting- the 
name of a duly nominated candidate of any part}' or g-roup 
of electors, in place of any name he may desire to erase on 
his own party ticket, to do so, without trouble, and to indi- 
cate intcllig-ently and unmistakably, on the face of his bal- 
lot, to the judg-es of election the chang-e he has made. With 
such a ticket no voter of ordinary intellig-ence can make a 
mistake, when chang-ing- his ballot, nor can election judges 
be in doubt as to the intention of an elector, even if he blur 
his ticket when making such changes, because the name of a 
candidate must be erased before another can be substituted. 

Congress must provide by law the form of all official bal- 
lots and the size of the type in which the names of the 
several candidates shall be printed, the space which shall 
appear on such ballot between the names of each candidate, 
so that the voter shall have room to write or paste in the 
name of am' candidate for whom he ma}' desire to vote, in- 
stead of the candidate whose name is printed on the official 
ballot of his party. 

Third. — It provides that a plurality of the votes cast at 
all nominating elections shall designate the persons to be 
voted for at each final election in November. It provides 
that a plurality shall, after the fourth ballot, elect, when the 
National College of Deputies may be called upon to fill 
vacancies in the office of President, or the College of Depu- 
ties for any State shall vote to fill the office of Senator or 
Representative in Congress, so that there can be no deadlock, 



— 835 — 

or failure to nominate or to elect candidates at any election. 

Fourth. — It provides that the legislatures of the several 
States shall no longer be charged with the duty of electing- 
Senators of the United States, and confers that power 
directly on the people of each State, thus enabling the legis- 
latures of the several States to attend strictly to the local 
business of their States, and to save time and expense — now 
recklessl}^ thrown away, as witness the one hundred days lost 
last winter in electing a Senator from Illinois. This amend- 
ment will also relieve the average legislator from the dan- 
gerous mental strain which now oppresses him, as he lies 
awake nights devising gerrymandering schemes, whereby a 
large part of the people in a majority of States are dis- 
franchised, by a dishonest distribution of political power, in 
the districting of States into Congressional districts, and 
DISTRICTS for the choice of electors of President and Vice- 
President, as was done in Michigan last winter. 

Fifth. — It provides for making ineligible for President 
or Senator or Representative in Congress, or member of the 
College of Deputies, any "Justice of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, or Judge of any Circuit or District Court 
of the United States, or Judge of the Supreme Court or 
highest appellate court in any State." This provision was 
inserted with the hope that, when adopted, it will materially 
aid in reducing the number of ambitious politicians now on 
the bench in every State, who are officially pandering to the 
worst element of our population, and appealing to them for 
political recognition and promotion. 

In my opinion, an able and pure judiciary can best be 
secured by permanently excluding all judges from eligibility 
to political office, national or State. 

It would be desirable if all elections for governors and 
State officers in the several States were held either the year 
BEFORE or the year after each presidential election, or in 
any year other than the one in which the presidential election 
must be held under this proposed amendment. 

And as the expenses of all national elections must be 
paid by the National Government, there can be no valid ob- 
jection to holding all national and State elections as sug- 
gested. This would ultimate in a complete divorce of 



— 836 — 

national and State politics, and confine the business of State 
leg"islatures strictly to local matters in their respective States. 

If to this sug'g'estion could be added the nominating- and 
election in March and April, of all State judges made elec- 
tive by the people, and the officials of all cities (say that 
such final election of all such officials should be on the first 
Monday in April), we should, at a much earlier day than 
now seems possible, witness the election of a majc^ity of 
non-partisan judges and a majority of non-partisan city offi- 
cials, and thus secure an abler and purer judiciary than we 
now have, and also a better and more competent class of city 
officials than is possible under our present system. 

It will be observed that this amendment provides that at 
each national election the names of every candidate for 
whom any elector is authorized to vote must be printed on 
one ballot. 

In order that the reader may the more readilj^ under- 
stand how impossible it will be to commit fraud when voting 
such a ballot, I have prepared four tickets such as each 
elector or party in any State must make up in order to have 
all tickets printed by the College of Deputies, after the nom- 
inations are made, as an elector can only vote for candidates 
whose names appear on official ballots. 

Tickets for States and cities are also printed herewith. 



— 838- 



FORM OF OFFICIAL BALLOTS SUGGESTED 



National Republican Ticket. 



National Democratic Ticket. 



For President of the United States : 


For President of the United States : 


John Doe, of Pennsylvania. 


Richard Roe, of Kentucky. 


For United States Senator : 


For United States Senator : 


David Gibbs, of Sciota. 


Norman B. Cook, of Hamilton. 


For Representative in Congress for the 


For Representative in Congress for the 


State at Large : 


State at Large : 


Moses McCoy, of Franklin. 


Albert Sydney, of Wood. 


For Representatives in Congress for the 


For Representatives in Congress for the 


First District : 


First District : 


1. Hezekiah Brown. 


1. Hugh McBride. 


2. Israel M. Hale. 


2. Zachariah Holmes. 


3. Joseph "Wilkins. 


3. Nimrod Hunter. 


4. Peter J. Fairfield. 


4. Milton R. Smith. 


5. Mathew Zane. 


5. Noah Jackson. 


For Senatorial Deputies : 


For Senatorial Deputies: 


1. Azariah C. Long. 


1. John Newman. ' 


2. Salmon A. Hooper. 


2. Prosper W. Clay. 


For Member of the College of Deputies 


For Member of the College of Deputies 


for the State at Large : 


for the State at Large : 


Abraham Knull. 


Moses Norton. 


For Members of the College of Deputies 


For Members of the College of Deputies 


for the First District : 


for the First District: 


1. Washington Hunter. 


1. James Lyons. 


2. Martin Simmonds. 


2. John K. Ledwick. 


3, Sampson Yarner. 


3. Ralph Lect. 


4. "William Houston. 


4. Joseph Barber. 


5. Robert Montgomery. 


5. Aaron Vance. 



— 839 



FOR NATIONAL ELECTIONS IN OHIO FOR 1896. 



National Alliance Federation 
Ticket. 


National Prohibition Ticket. 


For President of the United States : 


For President of the United States : 


Frank Granger, of Kansas. 


Paul St. John, of Maine. 


For United States Senator : 


« 
For United States Senator : 


Alexander Farmer, of Clinton. 


Gideon Stewart, of Fulton. 


For Representative in Congress for the 


For Representative in Congress for the 


State at Large : 


State at Large : 


Israel Putnam, of Washington. 


John B. Gough, of Ashtabula. 


For Representatives in Congress for the 


For Representatives in Congress for the 


First District : 


First District : 


1. Columbus Fairplay. 


1. Gideon J. Stewart. 


2. Paul B. Miller. 


2. Benjamin Brown. 


3. Butler F. Benjamin. 


3. Philo B. Scott. 


4. Lawrence Ainsworth. 


4. Samuel C. Hunter. 


5. Job Leadbetter. 


5. Nathan Owens. 


For Senatorial Deputies: 


For Senatorial Deputies : 


1. Andrew Jackson. 


1. Allen G. Marx. 


2. William J. Marvin. 


2. Zebulon Vance. 


For Member of the College of Deputies 


For Member of the College of Deputies 


for the Slate at Large : 


for the State at Large : 


Jacob Cone. 


Isaac Rodney. 


For Members of the College of Deputies 


For Members of the College of Deputies 


for the First District : 


for the First District : 


1. John P. Turly. 


1. Thomas M. Davey. 


2. Asher J. Flanders. 


2. Robinson McCane. 



3. Oliver P. Hall. 

4. Kingsley G. Baird. 

5. Moses Goodridge. 



3. Carl Pomeroy. 

4. George Kinney. 

5. John McDowell. 



840 — 



THE OFFICIAL BALLOTS SUGGESTED FOR 



National Republican Ticket. 


National Democratic Ticket. 


For President of tlie United Slates: 


For President of the United States : 


John Doe, of Pennsylvania. 


Richard Roe, of Kentucky. 


For Representatives in Congress for iJie 


For Representatives in Congress for the 


State at Large : 


State at Large : 


1. Azariah Flagg. 


1. Langdon Smith. 


2. Benj. F. Jarvis. 


2. Moses B. Jordan. 


For Representatives in Congress for the 


For Representatives in Congress for the 


Eighth District : 


Eighth District: 


1. Able M. Cooney. 


1. Abraham Long. 


2. James C. Banks. 


2. Solomon Bliss. 


3. George W. Davis. 


3. Addison St. Clair. 


4. David A. Wilder. 


4. Charles S. Brown. 


For Senatorial Deputies : 


For Senatorial Deputies: 


1. Jackson Donaldson. 


1. Madison J. Bell. 


2. David McPherson. 


2. Paul Jones. 


For Members of the College of Deputies 


For Members of the College of Deputies 


for the State at Large; 


for the State at Large: 


1. Lafayette Jones. 


1. Norton C. Bacon. 


2. Andrew J. King. 


2. Wm. Henry Brady. 


For Members of (he College of Deputies 


For Members of the College of Deputies 


for the Eighth District: 


for the Eighth District: 


1. Arthur Doe. 


1. Able J. Roe. 


2. Melangthon Doe. 


2. Solomon Roe. 


3. Hezek'iah Doe. 


3. Peter Roe. 


4. Jeremiah Doe. 


4. Timothy Roe. 



841 — 



NATIONAL KLECTIONS IN NEW YORK FOR 1896. 



National Alliance Federation 
Ticket. 


National Prohibition Ticket. 


For President of tlte United States : 


For President of the United States: 


Frank Granger, of Kansas. 


Paul St. John, of Maine. 


For Representatives in Congressfor the 
State at Large: 


For Representatives in Congress for the 
State at Large : 


1. Nathan G. Cole. 


1. William Gibbs. 


2. Allen B. Jones. 


2. Galen Morris. 


For Representatives in Congressfor the 
Eighth District : 


For Representatives in Congress for the 
Eighth District : 


1. James Emmerson. 

2. Thomas J. Smith. 

3. Amos Doolittle. 

4. Lyman Cross. 


1. Samuel Carey. 

2. Noah Chance. 

3. Arthur Coldwater. 

4. Calvin Tucker. 


For Senatorial Deputies : 


For Senatorial Deputies: 


1. Eli Z. Hooper. 


1. Isaac Clearwater. 


2. Luke McDay. 


2. Jacob Clingman. 


For Members of the College of Deputies 
for the State at Larqe : 


For Members of the College of Deputies: 
for the State at Large: 


1. John B. Walker. 


1. Wilkins Micauber. 


2. Weller J. Fuller. 


2. Asa B. Downing. 


For Members of the College of Deputies 
for the Eighth District : 


For Members of the College of Deputies 
for the Eighth District : 


1. Andrew Kirk. 


1. James Clearwater. 


2. Allen Kirk. 


2. John Clearwater. 


3. Abraham Kirk. 


3. Paul Clearwater. 


4. Isaac Kirk. 


4. Peter Clearwater. 



— 842 — 



FORM OF TICKETS FOR NEW YORK OR OHIO 



Republican State Ticket. 


Democratic State Ticket. 


For Governor: 


For Governor : 


William McKinley, Jr. 


James E. Campbell. 


» * » * * 


* » *- » » 


JPor Senators for the State al Large : 


For Senators for the State at Large : 


1. Orlando Stevens. 


1. Patrick Noland. 


2. Henry J. Howard. 


2. John Marks. 


3. Jacob Cable. 


3. Bailey McBride. 


For Senators for the Sixth District : 


For Senators for the Sixth District : 


1. Andrew J. Knapp. 


1. Mathew C. West. 


2. Charles Godfrey. 


2. Jackson Oakland. 


3. Hamilton Houghton. 


3. Harding Kellogg. 


4. Horace J. Smith. 


4. Marshall King. 


5. David Rathbourne. 


5. Obediah Mills. 


For Bepresentatives in the Legislature 


For Representatives in the Legislature 


for the State at Large : 


for the State at Large : 


1. James Long. 


1. Jason Quinsey. 


2. John Wentworth. 


2. JHlen Quinsey. 


3. Jacob Williams. 


3. Morris Quinsey. 


For Representatives in Legislature for 


For Representatives in Legislature for 


the Eighteenth District : 


the Eighteenth District : 


1. Stanton Brown. 


1. John Knowlton. 


2. Heber Zimmerman. 


2. James Knowlton. 


3. Anthony Moore. 


3. Henry Knowlton. 


4. George A. Rhodes. 


4. Charles Knowlton. 


5. Clayton Brewer. 


5. Abner Knowlton. 



— 843 — 



STATE ELECTIONS. FOUR OFFICIAL BALLOTS. 



Alliance Federation State Ticket. 


Pbohibition State Ticket. 


For Governor : 


For Governor : 


John Seitz. 


John J. Ashenhurst. 


***** 


* « * * » 


For Senators for the State at Large : 


For Senators for the State at Large : 


1. Abner L. Jones. 


1. Peleg G. Scott. 


2. Benjamin Briggs. 


2. Samuel Ramsey. 


3. Allen G. Holmes. 


3. Barney May. 


For Senators for the Sixth District: 


For Senators for the Sixth District : 


1. Chancy N. Olds. 


1. Willard Warner. 


2. Arthur Cook. 


2. Francis G. Scott. 


3. Jonathan Wynn. 


3. Asa Sherwood. 


4. George A. Greene. 


4. Nathan Jewell. 


5. Michael Sheridan. 


5. William J. Bell. 


For Representatives in the Legislature 


For Representatives in the Legislature 


for the State at Large : 


for the State at Large : 


1. Able Adams. 


1. Morrison Roach. 


2. Nicholas Adams. 


2. Dennison Hale. 


3. Philander Adams. 


3. Robinson Holmes. 


For Representatives in Legislature for 


For Representatives in Legislature for 


the Eighteenth District : 


the Eighteenth District : 


1. Benjamin Stanton. 


1. Mason G. Thorp. 


2. Oliver Hatchings. 


2. llezekiali Hooper , 



3. Wilbur Ford. 

4. Thomas H. Ford. 

5. Frederick Beaman. 



Waldron Dugan. 
Joseph Stewart. 
Abram Benson. 



— 844- 



FOUR OFFICIAL TICKETS FOR CITIES OF THE 



Republican City Ticket. 


Democratic City Ticket. 


For Mayor : 




For Mayor : 


John Paul Jones. 




Marshall P. Hall. 


« * « $ 


« 


» * » * » 


For Board of Aldermen for 


the 


For Board of Aldermen for the 


City at Large: 




City at Large : 


1. Allen G. Mason. 




1. Jacob Brown. 


2. Franklin Fuller. 




2. Isaac Brown. 


3. Aaron Winfield. 




3. Zachariah Brown. 


For Board of Aldermen for 


the 


For Board of Aldermen for the 


Fourth District: 




Fourth District : 


1. John Smyth. 




1. Milton Brown. 


2. Jason Smyth. 




2. Obediah Brown. 


3. Jackson Smyth. 




3. Paul Brown. 


4. James Smyth. 




4. Peter Brown. 


5. Jonathan Smyth. 




5. INIoses Brown. 


For Members of the Council for 


the 


For Members of the Council for the 


City at Large : 




City at Large : 


1. Anthony Salsbury. 




1. Norman Lang. 


2. Arthur Salsbury. 




2. Henry J. Lang. 


3. Albert Salsbury. 




3. Allen B. Lang. 


For Members of the Council for 


the 


For Members of the Council for the 


Twelfth District: 




Twelfth District: 


1. John Bingham. 




1. Washington Brady. 


2. James Bingham. 




2. Worthington Brady. 


3. Jackson Bingham. 




3. William Brady. 


4. Jason Bingham. 




4, Worden Brady. 


5. Jasper Bingham 




5. Walden Brady. 



■845- 



POPULATION OF CINCINNATI AND NEW YORK. 



Citizens' Non-partisan Cit 


Y 


Prohibition City Ticket. 


Ticket. 






For Mayor: 




For Mayor : 


Jacob Zeigler. 




Arthur Brown. 


* » «- «- 


« 


* ■;■:• * * » 


For Board of Aldermen for 


the 


For Board of Aldermen for the 


City at Large : 




City at Large : 


1. Otho Blake. 




1. Melville Frank. 


2. Norton Blake. 




2. Melangthon Fay. 


3. James G. Blake, 




3. Orlando Brown. 


.For Board of Aldermen for 


the 


For Board of Aldermen for the 


Fourth District: 




Fourth District : 


1. John J. Jones.' 




1. William Aikens. 


2. John Paul Jones. 




2. John Aikens. 


3. Jackson Jones. 




3. Jason Aikens. 


4. James J. Jones. 




4. Jeptha Aikens. 


5. Jeptha Jones. 




6. James Aikens. 


For Members of the Council for 


the 


For Members of the Council for the 


City at Large : 




City at Large : 


1. William Banks. 




1. Alford Gleason. 


2. Washington Banks. 




2. Aaron Gleason. 


3. Walter J. Banks. 




3. Addison Gleason. 


For Members of the Council for 


the 


For Members of the Council for the 


Twelfth Disiri-t: 




Twelith District : 


1. Elliot Zane. 




1. John Coldwater. 


2. Elbert Zane. 




2. Jason Coldwater. 


3. Elihu Zane. 




3. Moses Coldwater. 


4. Ezekiel Zane. 




4. Paul Coldwater. 


5. Elijah Zane. 




5. St. John Coldwater. 



846 — 





Population. 


Population. 




White. 
1790. 


Colored. 
1790. 


AVl)ite. 
1800. 


SCO 

o '7' 
|g 


Colored. 
1800. 


(0 00 


District of Columbia- 






10,066 

49,852 
586,095 
194,325 
102,261 
244,721 
416,393 
216,326 
196,255 
182,998 
514,280 
557.731 
337,764 

65,438 
153,908 
179,873 

91,709 
150,901 

45,028 


/c 

38 
14 
93 

5 
12 

4 
40 
30 
16 
78 
17 

2 

81 

194 

187 

57 


4,027 

14,421 

16,270 

16,824 

60,425 

6,281 

6,452 

125 222 

149^336 

860 

365,920 

31,320 

140,339 

3,684 

557 

41,082 

13,893 

818 

337 


% 


Delaware 


46,310 

424,099 

169,954 

52,886 

232,374 

373.324 

208,649 

140,178 

141,097 

442.117 

314;i42 

288,204 

64,470 

85,154 

61,133 

31,913 

96,002 


12,786 

10,274 

14,185 

29,662 

5,572 

5,463 

111,079 

108,895 

788 

305,493 

25,978 

105,547 

4,355 

271 

12,544 

3,778 

538 


13 


Pennsj'lvania 

New Jersey 


58 
IQ 


Georgia ±— 

Connecticut - 


104 
13 


Massachusetts 

Mar5land _ - 


18 
13 


South Carolina 

New Hampshire 

Virginia. 


37 

9 

20 


New York 


21 


North Carolina 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 


33 

Bee. 15 

106 


Kentucky 


2*^8 


Tennessee. 


268 


Maine- 


52 


Ohio — - 




Louisiana _ _ 








Indiana _ _ 






5,343 
5,179 




298 
3,671 




Mississippi _ _ _ 








Illinois 








Alabama 














Missouri 














Arkansas 












Michigan- _ _ 












Florida — 














Texas _ _ 














Iowa 














Wisconsin — 














California- _ 














Minnesota— 














Oregon 














Kansas - 














West Virginia 














Nevada — 














Nebraska 














Colorado 














North Dakota 


I 












South Dakota 

IMontana - - - 


J "" 












Washington- - 














Wyoming- - __ _ 














Idaho - __ 














Utah — — 














New Mexico 














Arizona. 














Alaska 






















36 






Total- - _ _ 


3 172 006 


757,208 


4,306,446 


1,002.037 


32 









— 847 — 





Population. 






Population. 




White. 
1810. 


i 

OS 
<0 

o 

a 


Colored. 
1810. 


2 

a 


White. 
1820. 


a 


Colored. 
1820. 


aj 
u 

CJ 

d 
1— ( 


16,079 

55,361 

786,804 

226,868 

145,414 

255,179 

465,303 

235,117 

214,196 

. 213,490 

551,514 

918,699 

376,410 

73,214 

217,145 

324,237 

215,875 

227,736 

228,861 

34,311 

23,890 

23,024 

11,501 


% 
60 
11 
34 
17 
42 

4 
12 

9 

9 
17 

7 
65 
11 
12 
41 
80 
135 
51 
408 

"347' 
345 


7,944 

17,313 

23,287 

18,694 

107,019 

6,763 

6,737 

145,429 

200,919 

970 

423,086 

40,350 

179,090 

3,717 

750 

82,274 

45,852 

969 

1,899 

42,245 

630 

17,328 

781 


97 

20 

43 

11 

77 

8 

4 

16 

35 

13 

16 

29 

28 

1 

35 

100 

230 

18 

464 

111 
372 


22,614 

55,282 

1,017,094 

257,409 

189,566 

267,181 

516,419 

260,223 

237,440 

243,236 

603,085 

1,332,744 

419,200 

79,413 

235,063 

434,644 

339,927 

297,340 

576,572 

73,383 

145,758 

42,176 

53,788 

85,451 

65,988 

12,579 

8,591 


% 

41 

Dec. 1 . 

29 

13 

30 
5 

11 

11 

11 

14 
9 

45 

11 
8 
8 

34 

67 

31 
152 
114 
510 

83 
368 

225" 

'"86~' 


10,425 

17,467 

30,413 

20,017 

151,419 

7,967 

6,740 

147,127 

265,301 

786 

462,031 

39,367 

219,629 

3,602 

903 

129,491 

82,844 

929 

4,723 

79,540 

1,420 

33,272 

1,374 

42,450 

10,569 

1,676 

174 


/o 

31 

1 

31 

7 

41 

18 

0.04 

1 

32 

Dec. 19 

9 
Dec. 2 

23 

Dec. 3 

20 

67 

81 

Dec. 4 

149 

88 

125 

a2 

76 


17,227 




3,618 




192 


4,618 




144 




21 


















































































































































































































































































































































5,862,073 


36 


1,377,808 


38 


7,862,166 


34 


1,771,656 


29 



848 





Population. 


PoprLATiox. 




White. 
1830. 


1 


Colored. 
1830. 


q; 

a; 

u 
a 


White. 
1840. 


6 
a 

a 


Colored. 

1840. 




v: 




Pist. Columbia 

Delaware 

Pennsylvania - 
New jersey — 

Georgia 

Connecticut — 
INIassachusetts 

Maryland 

8oulh Carolina 
N. Hampshire 

Tirginia 

New York 

North Carolina 
Rhode Island- 
Vermont 

Kentucky 

Tennessee 

Maine 

Ohio 

Louisiana — '. 

Indiana 

Mississippi — 

Illinois 

Alabama 

Missouri 

Arkansas 

Michigan 

Florida 

Texas - - 


27,563 

57,501 

1,309,900 

300,266 

296,806 

289,603 

603,359 

291,108 

257,863 

268,721 

694,300 

1,873,663 

472,843 

93,621 

279,771 

517,787 

535,746 

398,263 

928,329 

89,441 

339,399 

70,443 

155,061 

190,406 

114,795 

25,671 

31,346 

18,385 


% 

22 

4 

29 

17 

57 

8 

17 

12 

9 

10 

15 

41 

13 

18 

19 

19 

58 

34 

61 

22 

133 

67 

188 

123 

105 

104 

265 


12,271 

19,147 

38,333 

20,557 

220,017 

8,072 

7,049 

155,932 

323,322 

607 

517,105 

44,945 

265,144 

3,578 

881 

170,130 

146,158 

1,192 

9,574 

126,298 

3,632 

66,178 

2,384 

119,121 

25,660 

4,717 

293 

16,345 


% 

18 

10 

26 

3 

45 

1 

5 

6 

22 

Dec. 23 
12 
14 
21 

B8C.1. 

Dec. 2 

31 

76 

2s 

103 

59 

156 

99 

74 

181 

143 

181 

m 


30,657 
58,561 

1,676,115 
351.588 
407,695 
301,856 
729,030 
318,204 
259,084 
284,036 
740,968 

2,378,890 
484,870 
105.587 
291,218 
590,253 
640,627 
500,438 

1,502,122 
158,457 
678,698 
179,074 
472,254 
335,185 
323,888 
77,174 
211,560 
27,943 


% 

11 

2 

28 

17 

37 

4 

21 

9 

4 

6 

7 

27 

"3 

13 

4 

14 

20 

26 

62 

77 

100 

154 

205 

76 

182 

201 

575 

52 


13,055 

19,524 

47,918 

21,718 

283,697 

8,122 

8,669 

151,815 

335,314 

538 

498,829 

50,031 

268,549 

3,243 

730 

189,575 

188,583 

1,355 

17,345 

193,954 

7,168 

196,577 

3,929 

255,571 

59,814 

20,400 

707 

26,534 


6 
2 

25 
6 

29 
1 

23 

Dec. 3. 

4 
Decii 
Dec 4. 

11 
1 
Dec. 9. 
Dec 17. 

n 

29 

14 

81 

54 

97 

197 

65 

115 

1S3 

332 

141 

62 










42,924 
30,749 


— 


188 
196 




VVisconsin 










California 


1 








Minnesota 
















Oregon 










--|" 




Kansas 


1 












West Virginia 




























Nebraska-- 
















Colorado 
















North Dakota- 


I 














South Dakota. 


) ^ — 






























































Utah 






































1 
















1 












Total 


a 10,537,378| 34 2,328,642 


31 


614,195,805 


35 


2,873,648 


23 



a Includes b,Zi% persons on public ships in the service of the U. S. 
b Includes 6,100 persons on public ships iu the service of the U. S. 



849 — 





Population. 






POPU 


LATION. 




White. 




Colored. 


03 


White. 


3 


Colored. 1 1 


1850. 


o 


1850. 


a 


1860. 


a 


1860. 






% 




% 




% 




/o 


37,941 


24 


13,746 





60,763 


60 


14,316 


4 


71,169 


22 


20,363 


4 


90,589 


27 


21,627 


6 


2,258,160 


35 


53,626 


12 


2,849,259 


26 


56,949 


6 


465,509 


32 


24,046 


11 


646,699 


39 


25,336 


5 


521,572 


28 


384,613 


36 


591,550 


13 


465,698 


21 ^ 


363,099 


20 


7,693 


Bee. 5 


451,504 


24 


8,627 


12 . 


985,450 


35 


9,064 


5 


1,221,432 


24 


9,602 


6 


417,943 


31 


165,091 


9 


515,918 


23 


171,131 


4 


274,563 


6 


393,944 


17 


291,300 


6 


412,320 


5 


317,456 


12 


520 


Decs. 


325,579 


3 


494 


Bee. 5. 


894,800 


21 


526,861 


6 


1,047,299 


17 


548,907 


4 


3,048,325 


28 


49,069 


Bee. 2. 


3,831,590 


26 


49,005 


Bee. 0.1. 


553,028 


14 


316,011 


18 


629.942 


14 


361,522 


14 


143.875 


36 


3,670 


13 


170,649 


19 


3,952 


8 


313,402 


8 


718 


Dee. 2. 


314,369 


0.3 


709 


Bee. .1. 


761,413 


29 


220,992 


17 


919,484 


21 


236,167 


7 


756,836 


18 


245,881 


30 


826,722 


9 


283,019 


15 


581,813 


16 


1,356 


.07 


626,947 


8 


1,327 


Bee. 2. 


1,955,050 


30 


25,279 


46 


2,302,808 


18 


36,673 


45 


255,491 


61 


262,271 


35 


357,456 


40 


350,373 


34 


977,154 


44 


11,262 


57 


1,338,710 


37 


11,428 


1 i 


295,718 


65 


310,808 


58 


353,899 


20 


437,404 


41 


> 846,034 


79 


5,436 


38 


1,704,291 


101 


7,628 


40 


426,514 


27 


345,109 


35 


526,271 


23 


• 437,770 


27 . 


592,004 


83 


90,040 


51 


1,063,489 


80 


118,503 


32 


162,189 


110 


47,708 


134 


324,143 


100 


111,259 


133 


395,071 


87 


2,583 


265 


736,142 


86 


6,799 


163 


47,203 


69 


40,242 


52 


77,746 


65 


62,677 


56 


154,034 




58,558 




420,891 


173 


182,921 


212 


191,881 


347 


333 


77 


673,779 


251 


1,069 


221 


304,756 


891 


635 


224 


773,693 


154 


1,171 


84 ' 


91,635 




962 




323,177 


253 


4,086 


325 


6,038 




39 




169.395 


2705 


259 


564 


13,087 




207 




52,160 
106,390 


299 


128 
627 


Bee. 38. 




















6,812 
28,696 
34,231 




45 
82 
























46 












2,576 


























11,138 




30 






























11,330 




50 




40,125 


254 


59 


18 


61,525 




22 




82,924 


35 


85 


286 


















19,553,068 


38 


3,638,808 


27 


26,922,537 


38 


4,441,830 


22 



54 



850 — 



District of Columbia- 
Delaware 

Pennsylvania 

New Jersey 

Georgia 

Connecticut" 

Massachusetts 

Maryland 

South Carolina 

New Hatapshire 

Virginia 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ehode Island 

Vermont 

Kentucky 

Tennessee 

Maine 

Ohio 

Louisiana 

Indiana 

Mississippi 

Illinois 

Alabama 

Missouri 

Arkansas 

Michigan 

Florida 

Texas 

Iowa 

Wisconsin 

California 

Minnesota 

Oregon 

Kansas 

West Virginia 

Nevada 

Nebraska 

Colorado 

North Dakota 

South Dakota 

Montana 

Washington 

Wyoming 

Idaho 

Utah 

New Mexico 

Arizona 

Oklahoma 



Population. 



White. 

1870. 



Total- 



88,278 
102,221 

3,456',609 
875,407 
638,926 
527,549 

1,443,156 
605,497 
289,667 
317,697 
712,089 

4,330,210 
678,470 
212,219 
329,613 

1,098,692 
936,119 
624,809 

2,001,946 
362,065 

1,055,83 
382,896 

2,511,096 
521,384 

1,603,146 
362,115 

1,167,282 

96,057 

564,700 

1,188,207 

1,051,351 

499,424 

438,257 

86,929 

346,377 

424,033 

38,959 

122,117 

39,221 

} 12,887 

18,306 
22,195 

8,726 
10,618 
86,044 
90,393 

9,581 



% 

45 

13 

21 

35 

8 

17 

18 

17 

Dec. 0.6 

Dec. 2 

Dec. 32 

13 

8 

24 

5 

19 

13 

Dec. 0.3 

13 

1 

24 

8 

47 

Dec. 0.9 

51 

12 

59 

24 

34 

76 

36 

55 

159 

67 

226 



472 

326 

15 

400 



99 



33,589,877 



114 
9 



Colored. 
1870. 



43,404 

22,794 

65,294 

30,658 

545,142 

9,668 

13,947 

175,391 

415,814 

580 

512,841 

52,081 

391,650 

4,980 

924 

090 910 

322,331 

1,606 

63,213 

364,210 

24,560 

444,201 

28,762 

475,510 

118,071 

122,169 

11,849 

91,689 

253,475 

5.762 

2,113 

4,2 

759 

346 

17,108 

17,980 

35 

789 

456 

94 

183 
20 
183 
60 

118 

172 

26 



% 

203 

5 

15 
21 
17 
12 
45 
2 

^0.9 

17 

Dec. 7 

6 

8 

26 

30 

Dec. 6 

14 

21 

72 

4 

115 

2 

277 

9 

Dec. 0.4 

10 

74 

46 

39 

439 

80 

5 

193 

170 

2629 



693 
862 
891 



590 



100 
102 



4,880,009! 10 



— 851 — 



Population. 


Population. 


White. 


i 


Colored. 


o5 


White. 




Colored. 


6 

I) 


1880. 


2 
a 


1880. 


O 

a 


1890. 


o 


1890. 


a 








M 




'"' 




'"' 




% 




% 




% 




% 


118,006 


34 


59,596 


37 


154,095 


31 


75,572 


27 


120,160 


18 


26,442 


16 


140,066 


17 


28,386 


7 


4,197,016 


21 


85,535 


31 


5,148,257 


23 


107,596 


26 


1,092,017 


25 


38,853 


27 


1,396,581 


28 


47,638 


23 


816,906 


28 


725,133 


33 


978,357 


20 


858,815 


18 


610,769 


16 


11,547 


19 


733,438 


20 


12,302 


7 


1,763,782 


22 


18,697 


34 


2,215,373 


26 


22,144 


18 


724,693 


20 


210,230 


20 


826,493 


14 


215,657 


3 


391,105 


35 


604,332 


45 


462,008 


18 


688,934 


14 


346,229 


9 


685 


18 


375,840 


9 


614 


Dec. 10 


880,858 


24 


631,616 


23 


1,020,122 


16 


635,438 


1 


5,016,022 


16 


65,104 


25 


5,923,952 


18 


70.092 


8 


867,242 


28 


531,277 


36 


1,055,382 


22 


561,018 


6 


269,939 


27 


6,488 


30 


337,859 


25 


7,393 


14 


331,218 


0.5 


1,057 


14 


331,418 


0.1 


937 


Dec. 11 


1,377,179 


25 


271,451 


22 


1,590,462 


15 


268,071 


Dec. 1 


1,138,831 


22 


403,151 


25 


1,336,637 


17 


430,678 


, 7 


646,852 


4 


1,451 


Dec, 10 


059,263 


2 


1,190 


Dec. 18 


3,117,920 


20 


79,900 


26 


3.584,805 


15 


87,110 


9 


454,954 


26 


483,655 


oo 


'558,395 


23 


559.193 


16 


1,938,798 


17 


39,228 


60 


2,146,736 


11 


45,215 


15 


479,398 


25 


650,291 


46 


644,851 


14 


742,559 


14 


3,031,151 


21 


46,368 


61 


3,768,472 


24 


57,028 


23 


662,185 


27 


600,103 


26 


833,718 


26 


678,489 


13 


2,022,826 


26 


145,350 


23 


2,528,458 


25 


150,184 


3 


591,531 


63 


210,666 


72 


818,752 


38 


309,117 


47 


1,614,560 


38 


15,100 


27 


2,072,884 


28 


15.223 


1 


142,605 


48 


126,690 


38 


224,949 


58 


166;i80 


31 


1,197,237 


112 


393,384 


55 


1,746,935 


46 


488,171 


24 


1,614,600 


36 


9,516 


65 


1,901,086 


18 


10,685 


12 


1,309,618 


25 


2,702 


28 


1,680,473 


28 


2,444 


Dec. 10 


767,181 


54 


6,018 


41 


1,111,672 


45 


11,322 


88 


776,881 


77 


1,564 


106 


1,296,159 


67 


3,683 


135 


163,075 


88 


487 


41 


301,758 


85 


1,186 


144 


952,155 


175 


43,107 


152 


1,376,553 


45 


49,710 


15 


692,537 


40 


25,886 


44 


730,077 


23 


32,690 


26 


53,556 


37 


488 


37 


39,084 


Dec. 27 


242 


60 


449,76-i 


268 


2,385 


202 


1,046,888 


133 


8,913 


274 


191,126 


387 


2,435 


434 


404,468 


112 


6,215 


155 


133,147 


933 


401 


327 


r 182,123 
I 327,290 


283 


914 


128 


35,385 


93 


346 


89 


127,271 


260 


1,490 


331 


67,199 


203 


325 


57 


340,513 


407 


1,602 


393 


19,437 


123 


298 


63 


59,275 


205 


922 


209 


29,013 


173 


53 


Dec. 12 


82,018 


183 


201 


279 


142,423 


66 


232 


97 


205,899 


45 


588 


153 


108,721 


20 


1,015 


490 


142,719 


31 


1,956 


93 


35,160 


267 


155 


496 


55,580 
58,826 


58 


1,357 
2,973 


775 












43,402,970 


29 


6,580.793 


35 


54,983,890 


27 


7,470,010 


14 











^-tU^^ 























a^i^rh 







Op^^£.<U^^^(^^^2W-^, 



APPENDIX. 



The " Souvenir " presentation was made on Emancipa- 
tion Day, September 22nd, 1893, at the Art Palace in Chicag-o, 
in Columbian Hall of the World's Parliament of Relig-ions, 
in the presence of not less than five thousand people. 

In this edition of the Souvenir, we add the appeal made 
f:o the public by the Publication Committee ; the address of 
I'lon. Wm. H. Young-, President of the Afro-American 
Leag-ue of Tennessee, and Bishop Arnett's able address, with 
the short speech of his little son, Master Daniel Payne Ar- 
Jiett, and Governor Ashley's admirable response. 

This appendix when added to the matter in the original 
Souvenir, makes a complete record and an invaluable his- 
toric volume. 



THE ADDRESS OP 

BISHOP BENJAMIN WILLIAM ARNETT, D. Do, 

OF WII^BERFORCE, OHIO, 



At Chicago, III., September 22, 1893, 



ON PRESENTING A SOUVENIR VOLUME, IN BEHALF OF THE AFRO- 
AMERICAN LEAGUE OF TENNESSEE, AND OF THE FRIENDS 
OF HUMAN LIBERTY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. 



To THE Hon. James M. Ashley, of Toledo, Ohio, 



IN art palace and IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PARLIAMENT 

OF RELIGIONS. THE REV. JOHN HENRY BARROWS, D. D., 

PRESIDING. 



Mr. President, Members of the Parliament of Re- 
ligions AND Fellow-Citizens of the Commonwealth of 
Humanity : 

In the name of my countrymen and fellow-sufferers of the 
past I come with g-reetings and rejoicing-s this night, that 
our night has turned to day, our former prison has become a 
mansion, and we are now the legitimate heirs of the heritage 
of American freemen. We are to consrratulate ourselves that 




^^^Z^ ^ Qt O^i^e//, 



this g-athering- is not only to be a mount of toleration and 
cordiality, but is to be one of gratitude and thanksg^iving- to 
God, and to one of the foremost heroes in the battle of free- 
dom. This is one of the g-reatcst honors of my life, to be 
spokesman of the Tennessee Leag-ue and of 7,500,000 of my fel- 
low-countrymen. It will be my privileg-e to review the work 
of the race for the past thirty years, and to follow some of 
the steps that have led to the marvelous triumphs of thirt}'- 
years of labor in field, study and schoolhouse. We are also 
to honor one to whom honor is due, and let him and his 
friends know that we are not unmindful of the workmen of 
the past. The battle of human freedom has been foug-ht in 
all lands for all races. 



THE VICTORIES WON. 

Fourteen hundred and ninety-one years before the Star of 
Bethlehem was hung- in the vaulted skies, or the celestial or- 
chestra sung" the natal song" of the "Infant Redeemer of 
Man," Moses, the servant of God, the lawgiver of the centu- 
ries, the first to unite in his person, human and divine law, 
led Israel, the children of God, beneath a banner of vapor 
and fire from the house of bondag-e, to Mt. Nebo, in sig"ht of 
the land of liberty. Joshua, his successor, lifted up the ban- 
ner, drew the sword, rallied his forces, crossed the Jordan, 
Jericho fell ; he moved on to Aiai in the plain of Gilg-al, 
erected the first monument to the triumph of liberty, with 
the stones broug"ht from the Jordan by the priests of the 
living" God. It became their "Triumphal Arch," and our 
" Bow of Hope," and Joshua spoke to the children of Israel, 
saying" : "When your children shall ask their fathers in time 
to come, saying", ' What mean these stones ?' then shall ye 
let your children know, saying- Israel came over this Jordan 
on dry land." 

And in the future men and women shall inquire, " What 
means this day, the 22d of September ?" 

When our children and their children's children shall 
inquire of their moral and relig-ious teachers, why the 22d of 



September is set down in the calendar as the day of hope and 
joy to the neg"ro, then will 3'ou answer them and say : 

When your father's father was in bondag'e there was a 
g-reat war between the northern and southern States of the 
Union ; at times one army was successful, and at times the 
other was successful. 

A g-reat and good man was the President of the United 
States. The party of men that elected him were opposed to 
the extension of slavery, and man}' of them believed in uni- 
versal freedom ; others of them believed in the emancipation 
of the slaves, while another class believed that the normal 
condition of the negro was to be a slave to the white man. 

There was a division among the people and the states- 
men in regard to the powers of the State and General Gov- 
ernment. One party believed that the General Government 
was superior to the State government. The Southerners be- 
lieved that the State government was superior to the Nation, 
al Government ; the logical conclusion of this was that a part 
was greater than the whole. Finally on the twelfth da}' of 
April, 1861, the American flag was fired upon at Fort Sum- 
ter, and the fort was compelled to surrender, and the Ameri- 
can flag was lowered. Thus came the great war known as 
the Rebellion. 

The leaders on both sides lifted up their standard, and 
hundreds of thousands rallied around them. Brave, trained 
and skilled men were appointed to lead them. The contest 
was long, bloody and dreadful. The war-cloud hung low 
and dark from sea to sea. Soldiers were vigilantly guarding 
the frontiers of liberty on one side, and those of slavery on 
the other. Every man was brave as though his face was 
brass, his muscles of iron and his fingers of steel. The 
minie-bail whistled its favorite song of death ; cannons 
spoke to cannons in the voice of thunder ; the earth heard 
and trembled, and the sky frowned upon the scene, grape and 
canister flew like birds through the air, bombs like meteors 
spread destruction in their path. The nights were made 
hideous by shells screaming and screeching like wild beasts 
of prey, contending with each other. The midnight air was 
burdened with groans of the wounded and the wails of the 
•dj'ing. Again could be heard 'the shouts of the advancing 



arm}- amid the din of battle. The curses of the retreating 
foe could be heard, ming-ling- with the shouts of triumph and 
victory. The bass voice of the artillery and the heavy tramp 
of the cavalry were broken by the shrill cries of the command- 
ers urg-ing- their men to victory. Doubtful as to the way the 
battle was g-oing-, the President of the United States issued a 
proclamation, inviting all (Christians and people to assemble 
in their churches and places of worship to pray to the God 
of the armies of heaven, that He might reinforce the armies 
of the Union b}^ His ever-conquering- legions. The people 
obeyed, prayer was offered, and the answer from on Hig-h 
was awaited by the nation. 

On the 16th of April, 1862, the first victory was g-ained 
for freedom and justice. The slaves of the District of Co- 
lumbia were emancipated, and the jubilant shouts were heard 
throug-hout the land. In the camp, in the prison and on the 
march the bands played, and the soldiers sang", "John 
Brown's body lies moldering- in the grave, but his soul goes 
marching on ; glory, glory hallelujah," etc. [Applause.] 

While this and other songs were filling the homes, hearts 
and tents of the land, the President of the United States, the 
commander of the Union army, stood upon the rock of mili- 
tary necessity, and gave the confederate army 100 days to 
surrender and renew their allegiance to the Constitution and 
the Union, attaching as a military penalty, ''If they failed to 
comply he would on the first day of January, 1863, emanci- 
pate all slaves in certain designated States and Territories 
of the countr}^ and promising protection to all who might 
come within the lines of the Union army, whether as labor- 
ers, teamsters or servants." Freedom was to be their re- 
ward. 

Thus this man hung the bow of promise over the prison of 
the negro, and bade the bondmen believe, pray and hope. 
Within the prison, the South, prayers ascended daily and 
nightly from the cabin, field and woods. In the North, daily 
and nightly meetings were held, speeches and pra3'ers alter- 
nating with each other ; prayers to God, and petitions to 
men. 

The negro wanted the Union saved, he wanted the Union 
flagtc triumph, but not till the first day of January, 1863, had' 



passed. Days increased tlieir weary marches ; weeks dragg-ed 
themselves along-, appearing- to be months in length, and 
three months rolled along as though they were three years to 
the wear}-, trusting and hopeful bondmen; in fact, the whole 
negro race lived a lifetime over, between the 22d of Septem- 
ber, 1862, and the first day of Januar}-, 1863, for the liberty of 
the generations, the prosperity and happiness of millions, and 
the destiny of a nation hung upon the issue of the hour and 
the resolve of the President of the United States. 
Of this proclamation, Mrs. Harper says : 

"It shall flash through coming ages. 
It shall light the distant years, 
And eyes now dim with sorrow 

Shall be brighter through their tears." 

When the first of January, 1863, came, the proclamation 
went forth, and millions of the slaves were made freemen in one 
day. The hut of the bondman was deserted, and the f reedman, 
with his wife and with his children, was banished from the 
old homestead, and they started to a land they knew not of ; 
but with faith in God, and a trust in His word, and with a 
lively hope in the final triumph of right, truth and justice, 
they began their weary march to the land of libert}-. There 
was joy and there was sadness ; jo}' that the hour of deliver- 
ance had come ; sorrow that they had to leave behind their 
associates. They started out not as the Israelites from 
Egj-pt, with the clothes and jewels of the Egyptians, for 
they had only the garments that they wore in bondage, and 
their onlj- jewel was the jewel of freedom. 

The scene was sad and joyful ; millions of people 
without a foot of land to stand upon, without a house or 
home to protect them from the storm of winter or the heat of 
the summer. In fact, they were landless, houseless and 
nameless, because hitherto they had borne the names of their 
masters ; now having no masters, they had no names, and 
each family had to choose a new name of freedom, and they 
named their children after the generals, the majors, the 
colonels and captains of the Union army, so that the roster 



of the army of the Union is the key to the g-enealog-ical rec- 
ord of the new sons and daug-hters of freedom, and the two 
were bound tog-ether forever and forever,, the deliverer and 
the delivered. [Great applause.] 

Thirty years have passed away with all of their scenes 
of hope and joy, life and death, peace and war, and the in- 
habitants of the city of the living- have been transferred to 
the cit}^ of the dead, and there await their final summons to 
appear at the bar of judg-ment. A gfeneration of men and 
women have appeared on the stag^e of human activities, have 
entered the conflict between rig-ht and wrong-, justice and in- 
justice, have conquered and received their crown of reward, 
while others are yet contending- for the faith once delivered 
to the saints, and for which the saints of goodness and the 
heroes of virtue have died. 

The question now is, "What has the neg-ro done with his 
thirty years of freedom ? " The following- are some of his 
achievements in the field of politics and g-overnment. 

Hundreds and thousands have served in ward meeting-s, 
city meeting-s, county and state conventions ; hundreds have 
attended the national conventions, which nominate the Presi- 
dent of the United States ; and John R. Lynch and others 
have presided over the national convention. 

In thirty years the neg-ro has been elected, and served 
with honor to himself and to his race in city councils, on 
boards of aldermen, in State leg-islature, in State senate, 
in national Cong-ress and in the United States Senate, and in 
each of the deliberative bodies has he presided with dig-nity. 
What race can show a better record than this ? I challeng-e 
comparison and wait for a parallel, either from histor}-, 
tradition, observation or experience. 

Since the neg-ro left the house of bondag-e he has been 
elected, and has acted as mayor of a town, he has been 
constable and marshal, the county 'squire and the city jus- 
tice of peace, the county sheriff and the United States mar- 
shal, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and lieut.- 
governor, presiding- over the State senate, acting- as Governor 
of Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina, approving- the 
laws, liberating- convicts, commuting- sentences of death to 



that of life, the embodiment of law and order for a common- 
wealth. 

He has presided over the national House of Representa- 
tives, and filled the chair of Vice-President of the United 
States with honor and dig-nity. The Hon, B. K. Bruce was 
reg-ister of the United States treasury and stamped his name 
upon the currency of our country, and g-ave the neg-ro's con- 
sent to pay the nation's debt in silver and gold, or in green- 
backs. 

In thirt}^ j^ears the negro went from field, shop and hotel, 
and has been elected and served as secretary of state, auditor 
of state, treasurer of state, attorney-g-eneral of state, super- 
intendent of public schools in count}' and state ; and the 
negro in the daj^s of reconstruction laid the foundation of 
the public school system of the South, and to-day it stands a 
monument of his love of education and of posterit}'. 

Since 1862 the negro has studied law, been admitted to 
the bar, has been elected city judg^e, has presided in the 
supreme court of South Carolina. He has acted as prose- 
cuting attorney and persecuting- attorney too. He has been 
admitted to practice in the district, circuit and supreme 
courts. Thus the negro is able to plead his cause from the 
police courts to the Supreme Court of the United States. 

The Hon. James M. Townsend and D. P. Roberts have 
acted as recorders of the g-eneral land of&ces of the United 
States, one of the most important ofi&ces in the g-ift of the 
President, for not one foot of public land can be sold or trans- 
ferred without the signature of the recorder of the lands. 
He is the custodian of the g-reat seal of the land office, and 
when he signs his name and stamps with the seal, he repre- 
sents the wishes of 62,500,000 people. 

The Hon. Frederick Doug-lass, the g-reatest of all Ameri- 
can negroes, acted as marshal of the District of Columbia ; 
he was the representative of law and order of the Govern- 
ment, and in a city where less than thirty years ag"o his kin- 
dred were boug^ht and sold. What a wonderful triumph ! 
What marvelous progress has been made in recognizing the 
rig-hts of the new-made freeman ! [Great applause.] 

Again, inside of thirty 3-ears the negro has been appoint- 
ed by the President of the United States to serve the Gov- 



ernment as consul in Madagascar, San Doming-o, minister 
resident and consul general to Hayti, the morning- star of 
neg-ro independence and negro reign ; and to Liberia, Africa, 
the lone star of hope to more than 200,000,000 of men, 
women and children, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. 
The negro has assisted in framing the organic laws of many 
States of the Union, since his freedom. He was an impor- 
tant factor in the reconstruction conventions, and has assist- 
ed in embodying in the organic law of the land the principles 
of justice and right. 

WHAT PROGRESS HAS THE NEGRO MADE IN EDUCATION ? 

That education is essential to the success of an individ- 
ual, family, race or country is a common axiom, and it is said 
on every side, "We must educate or perish." This is relative- 
ly and absolutely true with us as a race. Therefore we desire 
to see what progress we have made since our chains have 
been broken, and we stepped out into freedom. The follow- 
ing communication from Hon. W. T. Harris, Commissioner 
of Education of the United States, tells the story of thirty 
years of freedom and education. 

NUMBER OP SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED RACE. 

THE ENROI.I.MEN'r OE THEM BY INSTITUTIONS WITHOUT REFERENCE TO 

STATES. 

Teacliers. Schools. Enrollment. 

Public schools 22,956 21,520 1,327,822— '89 

Normal schools 316 41 7,462 

Institutions of secondary in- 
struction 354 53 11,480 

Universities and colleges 238 22 1,010 

Schools of theology 89 22 1,008 

Schools of law 15 4 42 

Schools of medicine 30 3 241 

Schools of deaf, dumb and 

blind 30 9 287 

Total 24,038 21,674 1,327,822— '89 

Grand total in all schools of all grades 1,353,352 



IN COLLEGE AND SEMINARY. 

The students in our colleges and seminaries in the pur- 
suit of their studies have acquitted themselves nobly. The}' 
have made excellent records in the study of the classics, in 
the study of the higher mathematics, in the contests for 
class honors they have been very successful, and have won 
victories against great odds. 

In thirty years they have captured the oratorical prize in 
century-crowned Harvard; have borne aloft the palm of victory 
in Boston Universit3^ In all these institutions distinguished 
for their learning, the negro student has shown that the in- 
tellectual power of the race is equal to that of the Anglo- 
Saxon, in the acquisition of knowledge, and I firmly believe 
that time and circumstances will prove that he possesses the 
power of applying his knowledge in the world of thought 
and matter. It is only a question of time, for time is an essen- 
tial element, until the latent powers of the race will manifest 
themselves in the organization, and in the subsidizing of the 
moral and mental forces, and utilizing them for the advance- 
ment of science and the development of art, and in the foster- 
ing of the higher culture of our young men and our j-oung 
women to such an eminent degree that the doubt that hangs 
over the possibilities of the race will be removed, and con" 
fidence and trust and hope will then illumine the path of the 
future, to such an extent that the seekers after truth will be 
permitted to join in the excursions of investigation and study, 
regardless of race and color. 



THE NEGRO ON THE PLATFORM. 

Before the war and before freedom, it was a strange thing 
to hear of a negro upon the platform, or a platform of politi- 
cal parties, for he has had some connection with the platform 
of political parties, from the organization of our Government. 
I have reference to the public platform where an individual 
stands before an audience, presents facts of history, illus- 
trates by instances of biography' or recites events connected 



with his own personal observation or experience, or discusses 
principles, men and policies of government, approving- one 
party and disapproving* another, using" every arg-ument of 
moral suasion to have an individual follow the standard of an 
org"anization or a party, and to accomplish his end, uses 
log'ic, rhetoric and elocution, playing- upon the passions, prej- 
udice and sympathies of his audience as the musician touches 
the keys of his instrument. 

In thirty j^ears the negroes have produced a number of 
spell-binders or orators as they are called in common par- 
lance, among whom are the Hon. Frederick Douglass, old 
man eloquent of the old school; Rev. J. C. Price, of the new 
school; Rev. W. B. Derrick, a "child of the Tropics"; the 
Hon. Jno. R. Lj^nch, a product of the Sunnj^ South; Hon. J. 
Madison Bell, the man that sounded thekev-note of freedom, 
on the morning of emancipation at the Golden Gate. Bishop 
T. M. D. Ward, whose voice and speech have alike cheered 
the miner in the Sierra Nevada, and the new made freed- 
men in the savannah and the everglades of Florida, whose 
words were as beautiful as the magnolia, and as sweet as the 
orange-blossom. 

Time fails me to speak, for the coming orators are too 
numerous. 'Twould require a volume to record their names, 
their hopes, their ambitions; but whether in religious or 
political connections, at home or abroad, the platform orators 
of the negroes have been heard and felt within thirty years. 



THE STAGE. 

The negro has appeared upon the stage, and the dra- 
matic power of the race has been tested, weighed and has not 
been found wanting. Several stars have appeared above the 
horizon in the dramatic sky, their brilliant light softened 
the midnight darkness, and became a guide to those strug- 
gling to rise from horizon to zenith, until we now have a con- 
stellation appearing to the joy of all: 

Madame Selika, the queen of song; Miss Hallie Q. 
Brown, the queen of elocutionists; Miss Henrietta Vinton 
Davis, the gifted and matchless, magic, emotional and 



humorous reader; Miss Sisseretta Jones, the black Patti, has 
delig-hted thousands in the East and West in the United 
States, and has won laurels for herself and for the race in the 
West Indies and in foreign lands; Miss Daisy Nahar, with 
wonderful skill, instructs and delig-hts those who have had 
the pleasure of listening to her entertainments. 



THE NEGRO AS A PHYSICIAN. 

The doctor is one of the necessar}' and one of the indis- 
pensable members of a community. The healing- art is one 
of the most important of professions. It is so intimately 
connected with life and death, health and sickness, that a 
skillful physician is a blessing to his fellow-men. 

Everybody is interested in his success. The happiness of 
homes, the success of enterprises, the prosperity of the com- 
munity depend upon the health of its inhabitants. When the 
negro race assumed the responsibilities of freemen, we had 
no physicians of our own; we had to depend on others to care 
for our sick and to relieve our ills. But since that day our 
young men have entered college, have graduated with honor 
and now are practicing with eminent success. 

We have physicians who are not only practitioners, but 
are eminent as surgeons and oculists. Among the many who 
have distinguished themselves for learning and skill are: 
Drs. Purvis, Cook, Francis and Powell, of Washington City; 
Dr. Ray, of Brooklyn; Dr. Thompson, of New York; Dr. 
Darnes, of Jacksonville, Fla.; Dr. Buckner, of Cincinnati, 
Ohio; Dr. D. H. Williams, the founder of Provident Hospital 
and Training School, of Chicago, and one of the surgeons of 
the World's Fair. Dr. Boyd, of Nashville, and many others 
whose names time fails me to mention. 

The following figures will give some idea as to the num- 
ber of colored physicians of the United States of thirty 3'ears 
of freedom, for when freedom came we had only Dr. Delanej^ 
and one or two others. 

The Mahary College has graduated in 1891, 132 physi- 
cian^s. 



Howard University, 1891, graduated being- 112 colored 
and 216 whites. 

The Leonard Medical School in 1891, had g-raduated 30 
students and had 54 on the way. 

The Louisville National Medical Colleg-e has g-raduated 
11 persons and had an enrollment of 23. 

The New Orleans University g-raduated 4 in 1892, and a 
' arg-e number have g-raduated from Ann Arbor, and Chicago 
md other places. 

There are a larg-e number of dentists in the country, and 
pharmacists. 

The number of j^oung- men is increasing- in those pro- 
fessions. 



THE MUSIC OF OUR FATHERS. 

One of the disting-uishing- marks of a people is its music 
and lang-uag-e. The last thing-s of a race to die are its song-s 
and its lang-uage. There is something- of immortality 
stamped upon the heart and the human soul. They being- 
immortal, their utterances are immortal. 

Our fathers in their bondag-e crystallized their sorrows 
and their woes into songs and into hymns. The words were 
stamped on the memory of the generations, and their songs 
were impressed upon the souls of the old and the young, 
and when freedom came, and they marched out of their 
prison into the sunlight of liberty, the songs of the night 
were blended with the songs of the day. The minor of de- 
spair and the major of hope were set to the music of liberty 
and joy, and the music of the freedmen became the hymns of 
■libert3\ The songs were so unique, the music so original, 
that the children of the fathers gave concerts to the multi- 
tudes, thus transmitting the songs of the fathers to the 
hymns of the children. 

Temples of education were needed, the fathers were poor 
and the children were without money, so a company was 
organized and named the "Fisk Jubilee Singers." They 
sang in the East, West, North and South; finally they went to 
Europe and collected means and built a temple to Christian 



education. Other companies have been organized, the Wil- 
berforce Concert Co. ; the Hampton Singers, who sang- in the 
interest of Hampton College; the Tennesseeans, who sang in 
the interest of Tennessee College; the F. J. Loudin Co., who 
sang in Europe, America and Australia, returning by wa}^ of 
the Hawaiian Islands and San Francisco, thus circumnaviga- 
ting the globe. Thus, within thirt}^ years, the children have 
sung the songs of the fathers to the common people of the 
eastern, western and southern hemispheres. 

They also appeared in the royal presence of kings and 
queens, and of aristocrats in England, Germany, Spain, Por- 
tugal and Russia, bringing tears from the eyes of the distin- 
guished of many lands as they sang, " Steal Away to Jesus." 

The people of the South Sea were delighted to hear the 
children sing their father's song of " Swing Low, Sweet 
Chariot, Coming to Carry You Home." Thus the broken 
music of the slave became the harmony of the children of 
freedom, and everybody delights to hear the plantation melo- 
dies, the only original music of America. 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 

What are we doing toward training our daughters? Have 
we done our duty in the past, and are we doing it now ? 

A race cannot be greater than its women. The women 
are the teachers and molders of the thought and sentiment 
of the rising generation. A woman is the teacher at the 
fireside, the priest at the family altar, and what mother or 
sister says cannot be changed by what any one else sa3"s. 

Hence it is important to have mothers and sisters who 
are intelligent and refined. The influence of woman is not 
limited by the sides of the house or the boundaries of the 
premises, but she is one of the principal instructors of our 
Sundaj'-schools. In fact, they form a large majority of our 
moral and religious teachers in this and all other civilized 
countries, and I am told that she is the principal instructor in 
the semi-civilized countries, and the general sentiment is — I 
have man}' sisters, many wives, but only one mother. 



Tlie work that the women of the race have had to perform 
in the past thirty 3-ears ; they have had heavy burdens to 
bear, difficult tasks to perform, intricate subjects to consider 
and difficult questions to decide. They were moved from hut 
to hut of slavery to the house of freedom, without furniture, 
without any preparation. They had to leave many thing's 
behind that they desired to bring- with them ; they broug^ht 
with them many things that they oug-ht to have left behind. 

Thus embarrassed and surrounded, they beg-an the home 
work of reconstruction without a model or a teacher. It is 
true that a few noble women of the North came down, visited 
the cities and instructed our women how to arrang^e a home 
for free men and free women, and g-ave lessons in training- 
bo3^s and g-irls for usefulness in this life, and for preparing- 
them for usefulness in serving- God throug-h eternity. 

Thirty years have made a wonderful chang-e in our 
homes and in the social circles ; our women have made won- 
derful prog-ress. To-day the model home of the neg-ro is a 
place of refinement, culture, a home of song-, a temple of in- 
dustry-, a sanctuary of relig-ion, the citadel of virtue and the 
altar of patriotism, where obedience to human and divine law 
is taug-ht in theory and practice. 

God bless our mothers, sisters, wives and daug-hters. 
The prog-ress they have made, the advancement they are 
making-, is a marvel in our sig-ht, and asource of joy to every 
man who loves his race and his country. 



THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER. 

One of the hig-hest qualities of manhood is that which 
makes a soldier. It requires obedience, courag-e and love of 
country to constitute a g-ood soldier. He must obey without 
questioning- authority ; he must endure f atig-ue without com- 
plaining- ; he must leave his mother or wife and children be- 
hind without grieving- ; he must run and not weary ; he must 
walk and not faint. 

At the close of the Revolutionary war the negro was 
denied the right to bear arms in many of the States, which 
was against the Constitution of the country. But he bore it 



•with patience, trusting- in God, hoping- for the final triumph 
of right. When the civil war broke out, he offered his ser- 
vices to the governors of the States to help fill the quotas of 
the State. He received answer that ' ' this is a white man's war, 
and that the ^egro has nothing- to do w-ith it." But times 
changed, and after numerous defeats to the Union army, the 
leaders were convinced that the white man could not settle 
the war, and the negro was called in as an umpire ; but he 
would not enter without conditions, and one of the conditions 
was : " Give us a flag-, all free without a slave, and we will 
defend it as our fathers did so brave." 

When the conditions were complied with, the refrain was 
caug-ht up b}' the negro, east, west, north and south, and he 
sanof : 



"Onward, bo3's, onward. 

This is the year of jubilee 
God bless America, 
The land of libertv." 



And during- the civil war in America, from 1861 to 1865, 
there were 178,975 negro soldiers who enrolled in the United 
States volunteer arm}-. Of this number 99,337 were enlisted 
by the authority of the National government, 79,638 by the 
States and Territories, 36,847 soldiers died in the service of 
the country, and in the 449 engagements in which they par- 
ticipated they proved themselves worthy to be entrusted with 
the nation's flag and honor. And it has become a proverb in 
military parlance that the colored troops fought nobl}', and the 
children of the soldiers have sung- and continue to sing- : 

"We have stood and foug-ht like demons. 

Upon the battlefield. 
Both slave and valiant freemen 

Have faced the glittering- steel. 
Our blood benea.th the banner 

Has mingled with the whites'. 
And beneath its folds we now demand 



Our just and equal rig-lits. ' 

We fed the Union soldier 

When fleeing- from the foe. 
We led him through the mountains, 

Where white men dared not g-o. 
Our hoecake and our cabbage 

And our pork we freely g^ave, 
That this old flag- might be sustained, 

Now let it proudly wave. 

Let it wave, let it wave. 
But never over a slave." 

After the war had closed the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic was org-anized. The negro was admitted as a comrade, 
and to-day he is received as other comrades in the Grand 
Army of the Republic, sometimes in separate posts, some- 
times together ; be it as it ma}-, they have one flag- and one 
country. When the National Guard was org-anized the negro 
was received as a soldier, and is treated as all other mem- 
bers of this important branch of public service. 

We have companies, regiments, battalions of infantry, 
cavalry and of artillery. Coloredmen to-day bear commissions 
as captains, majors, colonels and generals, as well as chap- 
lains. 

Among- the best military org-anizations in the country 
are those in South Carolina, Georg-ia, Ohio, and other North- 
ern States have encouraged and supported these org-aniza- 
tions. In thirty years we have had several young- men to at- 
tend West Point and g-raduate, also to attend the United 
States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. We have a num- 
ber of regular troops in the regular army. In the last Indi- 
an war one of the colored companies disting-uished itself 
for bravery and saved the army from defeat and destruction. 
They were commended by the commanding- g-enerai, thanked 
by the Secretary of War, and transferred from the field in the 
west to Washington, D. C, as a mark of honor and distinc- 
tion for their bravery, and to-day they are g-uarding- the na- 
tion's capital. 

All this within thirty years. 



SKILLED LABOR. 

The mechanic is an important factor in every community. 
Skilled labor is more effective than Ainskilled labor. Brain 
and muscle combined can do more than brain alone or muscle 
alone. The man or race that has the larg-est amount of 
brain in the hand and the fingers will be more serviceable 
to humanity than the one with no brain in his hand. There- 
fore it is the duty of every father and guardian to so train the 
children that they can perform the greatest amount of skilled 
labor. In order to do this we must encourage the industrial 
schools by sending our children to them, b}- contributing of 
our means, by making- friends ior them. 

We must be able to build our own houses, make our own 
furniture, weave our own carpets. We must teach our boys 
to make brick; to be blacksmiths; to be tinners; to be wagon 
and carriage makers. 

We have now a large number of young men who are be- 
ing trained in the mechanical arts at Pine Bluffs, Ark.; at 
Tuskegee, Ala.; at Normal, Ala.; at Kittrell, N. C; at Paul 
Quinn, Waco, Tex. ; and at Wilberforce, Ohio. 

Our boys throughout the country have awakened to the 
situation and are preparing themselves for the future. The 
following figures will give the number of teachers and pupils 
ensrasred in the work of mechanical instruction: 



THE ARENA. 

Man is a physical, intellectual and moral being, composed 
of mind and matter. The culture of the ph^-sical man 
was the care of the ancient. Greece and Rome cultivated 
the ph3-sical and the mental man to the neglect of the moral 
and the spiritual, while the Jews cultivated the moral and 
spiritual to the neglect of the physical and mental. 

The racer, the boxer and the gladiator were the greatest 
of ph^'sical men, or the athlete, as the model physical man is 
called. 



In the intellectual world the greatest are orators, rhetori- 
cians, grammarians, mathematicians, poets, dramatists and 
philosophers. Pericles, of Athens, was the patron and de- 
fender of this class of men to a g-reater extent than any of 
his predecessors or his successors. 

Christianity, recog-nizing- man to be a tripartite being-, 
has encouraged and fostered the development of the bod}', 
mind and soul to their uttermost. For 200 years or more the 
race has not had systematical culture or trainingf, but that 
w*hich has come incidentally throug-h work in the field and 
shop. 

Within the past thirty years the race has had time to 
train the muscles, the arms, the legs and the feet. Hart has 
been known as the champion walker. Pugilist Dixon wears 
the champion belt of his class; Peter Jackson stands with the 
champion of the world, for the champion of the world failed 
to conquer Jackson; he fought a draw with Jackson, then 
challenged the champion of the world, and after defeating 
him still has Jackson to conquer. Thus Jackson and Cor- 
bett are champions of the world. 

THE NEGRO IN THE PULPIT. 

The pulpit is one of the great forces in the elevation of 
the race. The growth of the church since the war has been 
marvelous. The Christian ministry has been the leader of 
the people in church and in state ; but now we are getting 
leaders in other branches of activity. 

The foUowinsf is the status of the Methodist churches : 



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THE NEGRO AS AN AUTHOR. 

The race is now producing- some very fine books, among* 
them the Hon. G. W. Williams's "History of the Negro 
Race ;" " The History of A. M. E. Church," by Bishop D. 
A. Payne; "The Voice from the South," by Mrs. A. J. 
Cooper; "The Divine Log-os," by Rev, H. T. Johnson; 
"Theolog"y," by Rev. J. C. Embry, and many others are the 
first crop of authors in thirty years. I have in my own li- 
brary ninety-two, and the list covers more than 100. 

THE NEGRO PRESS. 

The press is a power. It was formerly used against the 
interest of the neg-ro, but now the neg-ro has his own papers 
and can speak for the race, demand his rig-hts and present 
his wrong-s to the world. The Christian Recorder is the 
oldest relig"ious press in this country. Rev. H. T. Johnson 
is its editor. It is the org-an of the A. M. E. Church. The 
A. M. E. Church Review, Rev. L. J. Cooper, editor, and the 
A. M. E. Zion Church Review, Hon. J. C. Dancy, editor, are 
doing g-ood work. We have now about 150 newspapers, plead- 
ing" the cause of the race every week, all since the emancipa- 
tion. 

After having- reviewed the prog-ress of the race for thirty 
years, and witnessed the advance it has made, it is with 
more than ordinary satisfaction that I appear in the presence 
of this g-reat audience to discharg-e the very pleasant duty 
which has been assig-ned me and to show the world that we 
are not a race of ing-rates, nor are we forg-etful of the bless- 
ings received, nor is our memory bad when recording the 
wrongs we have suffered in this land of freedom. 

Now, Hon. James M. Ashley, when in 1865 I sat in the 
gallery of the House of Representatives and witnessed your 
successful leadership in the last great congressional battle 
for freedom, I did not think that I would be called on to per- 
form so pleasant a duty as this. I was there when the Speak- 
er announced that the 13th amendment had passed. I 



joined in the song- of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." I heard 
the cannons in the city carr3ang- the glad tiding-s in the air. 
The bells of the city shouted for joy. Having- done your duty 
at all times — and the present g-eneration of black men are 
aware of it — and in their name and on their behalf I have 
headed the committee of compilation. It has been a work of 
love and pleasure to collect 5'our orations and speeches which 
in their day were our arm}^ and battle axes, and became our 
victory and liberty. [Applause.] 

In all you then said or did in our behalf, we have found 
no word or thought or act, which we or any black man could 
wish to change or blot. [Applause.] In 1864, when you 
said (and we have preserved it in this Souvenir) "that if 
true to the cause of freedom, the ver^' stones cast at 3-ou 
would one day be made inta your monument," you uttered 
a prophecy which to-night is fulfilled. [Applause.] 

To fulfill that prophecy we thought that to collect your 
speeches and put them in a volume, to be read for many genera- 
tions, would be better than a shaft of marble or a statue of 
bronze, for the marble would crumble beneath the weight of 
years and the. bronze would tarnish in the breath of time, but 
this volume will be sent to the public libraries of this and 
other lands and be read b}- the coming generations. 

Accept this token from the present generation, and on 
behalf of the coming generation I thank you for what you 
have done for them, and with you I rejoice that the door of 
our prison is closed forever and the gatewa}' of freedom is 
opened for all the generations to come. [Applause.] 



The following- presentation address was prepared by 
the Hon. Wm. H. Young-, President of the Afro-American 
lyeag-ue of Nashville, Tennessee. 

As Mr. Youngs was unavoidably detained at home, we 
publish this address in full. 

Bishop Arnett (with the aid of his little son, Danie] 
Payne Arnett) took Mr. Young-'s place. 



MR. YOUNG'S ADDRESS. 

Mr. President : As the representatives of the Afro- 
American Leag-ue of Tennessee, we have met this evening, 
in 'this great city, the Mecca toward which the heart of 
civilization has been turned during- this Columbian jubilee oc- 
casion, to erect a monument founded in the gratitude of the 
ex-slaves and their children of the United States of America. 

The spirit which actuated us in the movement, whose 
consummation we shall this nig-ht witness, impelled the 
nation to dedicate monuments to the champions of the cause 
of the Union, and the devotees of States' sovereig-nty to foster 
as an abiding- possession the memory of heroes whose convic- 
tions were dearer to them than life. 

Forty years ag-o the social fabric of our g-reat country 
consisted of four distinct threads : — 

(1) The slave, who by nativit}'-, residence and conquest 
had become an essential part of the nation ; 

(2) The abolitionist, who stood upon the broad doctrine 
announced by the revolutionary fathers, that "all men are 
created free and equal ;" 

(3) A larg-e element, who professed to believe that 
'* there were races" who could be chattelized without sin or 
crime. 

And (4) a larg-er number who cared little for the equality 



of men. so long- as their own rig-hts remained intact, and the 
integrity ot the National Government was undisturbed. 

In the struggle which followed the slave remained for a 
time a passive quantity. 

The abolitionist demanded the emancipation of the slaves. 

The devotees of States' rights maintained that the slave, 
being property, was wholW within the jurisdiction of the 
States, and that any infringement upon property rights by the 
National Government would justify a dissolution of the 
Union. 

This dictum left to the unconditional Unionist but one 
alternative, a coalition with the abolitionist for the purpose 
of saving the Union. 

The war is ended. Its results and subsequent legislation 
are enshrined in the nation's history. 

Under Providence, the Union is restored, slavery is abol- 
ished and the entire nation, North and South, rejoices in the 
accomplishment of both. 

We are not here to revive the unpleasant memories of 
the past, nor to rekindle the camp-fires which are possessions 
of the dead past ; but we are here to crown the head of him 
from the fullness of whose great heart the second declaration 
of independence sprung : 

' Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as 
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place 
subject to their jurisdiction." 

This declaration contains the essential element of dem- 
ocratic institutions ; and secures the perpetuity of the 
American republic. 

Mr. Lincoln was the mouth-piece of Unionism; Mr. Davis 
of State sovereignt}', Mr. Ashle)- of freedom. 

The two former championed the cause of peculiar forms 
ot government, the latter the cause of humanitv. 

The followers of Lincoln have seen the Union re-estab- 
lished. 

The followers of Mr. Davis have seen State sovereignty 
maintained in part with the exception of the right of secession. 



The followers of Mr. Ashley have seen the freedom of all 
men acknowledg-ed in 'theory at least. 

Kach has his reward in the gratitude of his chosen con- 
stituency. 

The imag-es of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Davis are perpetu- 
ated in marble and bronze as a lasting- reminder to the g^en- 
erations to come. 

But to-nig-ht we erect a unique monument of the charter 
of " the Tribune of the people." 

We come not as partisans, but as freedmen and citizens, 
the immediate beneficiaries of the crowning- act of Mr. Ash- 
ley's noble life. 

We come to snatch from the consummate statesman, 
patriot, philanthropist and benefactor, the chill and g"loom of 
ing"ratitude and to reinvest his being- with new life. 

We come to reassure him that the j^ears of strife, turmoil, 
and self-abneg-ation spent for a despised race were " as bread 
cast upon the water." 

We come to remind him that we to-nig-ht intend that his 
name and life-work shall be a precious legacy to our chil- 
dren's children. 

That they shall rise up and call him blessed. 

We have come to announce to the world that henceforth 
he who shall merit our g-ratitude shall not g-o unrewarded. 

This souvenir is the tribute of the Afro- Americans to the 
Hon. Jas. M. Ashley. 



PRESENTATION. 

At the conclusion of Bishop Arnett's address, he invited 
Gov. Ashley to arise. 

Thereupon Master Daniel Paj-ne Arnett, the Bishop's 
little son, stepped forward and presented him the volume and 
said: 

Gov. Ashley: — I present you this volume in the name of 
the coming" g-enerations, thanking- 3-ou for what you have 
done for us in the past. May God bless you and give j-ou 
long- life. 

Gov. Ashley's response to Master Arnett's speech was as 
follows : 

This is indeed a welcome surprise, and I take this book 
from your little son's hand with mingled feeling-s of satisfac- 
tion and delight. 

To me childhood is the connecting link between man 
and his Creator. When Jesus said " Suffer little children to 
come unto me," He touched all unperverted human hearts. 

My little man, your speech and act touches my heart with 
pleasurable emotions which words cannot fully express. May 
you always remember with pride the occasion on which you 
represented President Young of the Afro-American League 
of Tennessee, and when you reach man's estate may 3'ou 
appreciate in all its length and breadth the work of the 
Grand Men, who were the recognized Leaders of this great 
Parliament of Religions. As a citizen ma}- you prove worthy 
of the priceless heritage secured to you by the heroism and 
valor of the liberating Army of Anti-Slavery Heroes, and 
worthy of the noble man for whom you were named. 




&77u^/e 



tzdie^- L^<^'9^€.e 



'CC^. Cly^4.^e//. 




s^.^.j. ^. a/My. 



MR. ASHLEY'S RKSPONSE 
TO Bishop Arnett and Presidknt Young. 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : Some seer 
or sag-e has said, "that the unexpected always happens.'* 
That the unexpected often happens, 3'ou and all observing- 
men can testify. Certainly, in my most impassioned and 
vividl}- illuminated moments, when denouncing- this nation, 
as I often did, for its g-reat crime ag-ainst the negro, and de- 
scribing- him after he should be free, as in my mind's eye I 
then saw him liberated and marching- in solid black columns 
of advancing- civilization, I did not comprehend, in all its 
moral power and stately g-randeur, that which g-reets me as a 
living- reality to-night. 

Here in this mag-nificent building-, on an occasion made 
forever memorable and historic, I am told that in the vast 
audience before me, I can look upon eleven neg-ro bishops 
and not less than 150 reg-ularly ordained neg-ro clerg-y- 
men of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, represent- 
ing- an actual membership of five hundred thousand souls. 

And I am told that there are here present negro clerg-ymen 
from all branches of the Christian church, representing- nearly 
a million communicants more, and that in addition to these 
clerg-ymen, there are before me representatives of numerous 
schools and colleg-es, and editors, law3'ers, physicians and 
authors, with many men of recog-nized ability in artistic, 
mechanical and business pursuits ; and last thoug-h not least, a 
larg-e representation of org-anized wag-e-workers, and of neg-ro 
farmers and planters. 

This is indeed a convocation of black men, such as the 
world has never before witnessed, and such as the most 
sang-uine of the "old liberty g-uard," never expected to live 
long- enoug-h to see. [Applause.] 



Fellow-Citizens : On a day such as this, filled with historic 
memories, it is proper that I should say to you, that I did not 
want Mr. Lincoln to issue his one hundred days preliminary 
proclamation. I knew that such a proclamation would 
streng-then me personall}- and politically in the cong-ressional 
contest of that year, and beyond doubt secure, my re-election. 
But I was not fig-hting- for a personal triumph, nor was I fig-ht- 
ing to save the Union with slaver}'. I was fighting for free- 
dom and national unity, and national peace through the 
liberation and enfranchisement of the negro, I believed 
then, as I believe now, that no union could be honorable and 
enduring whose g-overnment was administered over the pros- 
trate form of Justice. [Applause.] 

As soon as the result of our State election in 1862 was 
known, Mr. Lincoln invited me to come to Washing-ton. 
The morning after reaching the cit}', I walked over from the 
Treasur}' Department with Mr. Chase to the White House. 
The President, Mr. Stanton, and others who were present, 
cordially congratulated me on my re-election (I was the 
only Republican member of the Ohio delegation who with- 
stood the mad political cyclone of that year), and the)'- were 
all anxious to know how I escaped. I answered: "It was 
your proclamation, Mr. President, that did it." In a moment 
or two, Mr. Lincoln said : "Well, General, how do you like 
the proclamation?" I answered: "That had I been com- 
mander-in-chief, I should not have g-iven the enemy one hun- 
dred days' notice of my purpose to strike him in his weakest 
and most vulnerable point, nor would I have made an apolog-y 
for doing so just and noble an .act." And I added b}- wa}' of 
quiet protest against recog-nizing- the slave-baron conspirators 
as entitled to any such consideration, "That I certainly 
should not have g-iven General Lee one hundred days' notice 
of my purpose to move on the weakest point of his fortifica- 
tions around Richmond, and publicl}' desig-nate that point as 
this proclamation does." Mr. Lincoln enjoyed my way of 
answering" him, and acknowledg"ed my "hit," as he called it. 

But though I did not want the one hundred days proclama- 
tion issued, I nevertheless hailed it with jo}', because I knew 
that it was a step in the rig-ht direction, and one from which 
there could be no retreat. I felt confident, that the slave 



barons in their blindness and madness would not accept its 
terms, and that on the expiration of one hundred days, the 
promised proclamation must be issued if Mr. Lincoln lived. 
Many of us were at that time apprehensive that he would be 
assassinated, or that some unexpected and untoward event 
mig-ht happen, to postpone or defeat the issuing- of the final 
proclamation. It was because of this fear and anxiety, that I 
preferred to have but one proclamation issued, and I was per- 
sistent, as all know, that it should be issued at once. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Certainly you and all honest men understand that I was 
thankful, as were the great body of Union men, for the 
promise which that one hundred days proclamation g-avet 
I hoped that the Confederates, like the Egfyptians of old, 
would harden their hearts, and refuse to accept Mr. Lincoln's 
offer of peace, and believing- that they would do so, this one 
hundred daj's' delay did not at any time shake my faith as to 
the final result, and they were to me days of hopefulness and 
thankfulness. 

I am a born optimist. No matter how dark the cloud my 
hopeful vision penetrates it and my eyes catch early g-limpses 
of the g"olden lig-ht beyond. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, often during- the war, a number of my 
associates in Cong-ress were wont to say, " that when Wendell 
Phillips blew a blast upon his bug-le horn, 'twas worth a 
thousand men ! " 

After the first of January, 1863, we all came to know, that 
Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was worth a 
hundred thousand men. As we now look back, we all realize, 
that when Mr. Lincoln blew a blast upon his bug-le horn, the 
nation paused, and listened and approved. 

At Spring-field, Illinois, in 1858, Mr. Lincoln said, "A 
house divided ag-ainst itself cannot stand. I believe this g-ov- 
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." 
The people heard him, and believed him and made him Presi- 
dent. 

In closing- his immortal Emancipation Proclamation, he 
spoke in lang-uag-e that will live in history forever I These 
are his g-olden words: "And upon this act, sincerel}^ be- 
lieved to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution 



upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judg-ment of 
mankind, and the g-racious favor of Almig"hty God." 

This blast upon his bug"le horn reverberated from center to 
circumference, and was hailed with joy by all patriotic 
Americans. It was also heard and welcomed by the friends 
of liberty all around the world. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, I am g"lad your committee has preserved in 
this volume a speech of mine made in Congress before Mr. 
Lincoln's inaug"uration. It was made ag^ainst the amazing- 
surrender of the House Committee, known in those days as the 
"Union Saving- Committee of 33." That committee pro- 
posed a compromise which they intended should silence for 
all time, the troublesome abolitionist, and g-ive the slave 
barons the ease and peace, the security and perpetual power 
they soug-ht. This so-called final compromise, was an amend- 
ment to our national Constitution, which reads as follows : 

"Article 12. No amendment shall be made to the Consti- 
tution, which shall authorize or g-ive Congress the power to 
abolish or interfere within any State, with the domestic insti- 
tutions thereof, including- that of persons held to labor or ser- 
vice, by the laws of such State." 

As an American, I blush to state that this proposed amend- 
ment passed both Houses of Cong-ress, with the active sup- 
port of President Buchanan, two days before Mr. Lincoln's 
inaug-uration. Had it been ratified by the requisite num- 
ber of States, it would have madethe chattelization of men, 
ever3'where beneath our flag-, whether white or black, consti- 
tutional and perpetual. In all coming- time, this humiliat- 
ing- and shameless proposition will confront us, as the black- 
est act proposed by the American Cong-ress during- all our 
dark history! Nor need I add, that its passag^e by Cong-ress 
completed our national deg-radation. 

I cannot describe to you how this appalling- weakness of 
loyal men in our own ranks, who voted with the conspirators 
for this abomination of abominations, oppressed and over- 
whelmed me with shame and sorrow. Often in my ag-ony I 
cried out: 

" God g-ive us men ! A time like this demands 

Strong- minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; 



Men whom the lust of office does not kill; 
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; 
Men who possess opinions and a will; 
Men who have honor; men who will not lie; 
Men who can stand before a demagog-ue, 
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking-. 
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog- 
In public duty and in private thinking." 

[Applause.] 

On page 126 of this volume may be found what I said in 
Congress on the I7tli of January, 1861, against this Christless 
proposition of the Committee of 33: 

"The basis of the new Union is to be the recognition of 
slaves as property by constitutional provision, unalterable 
except with the consent of every slave State." . 

"That such demands will ever be acceded to by the peo- 
ple of the United States I do not believe possible. But what- 
ever MAY BE THE COURSE OP OTHERS, BE THE CONSEQUENCES 
WHAT THEY MAY, BY NO ACT OR VOTE OF MINE SHALI. THE CON- 
STITUTION OF MY COUNTRY EVER BE S5 AMENDED AS TO REC- 
OGNIZE PROPERTY IN MAN." [ApplaUSe.] 

Contrast the proposed amendment of the Compromise Com- 
mittee of 33, with the 13th amendment, introduced by me in 
the House of Representatives on the 14th of December, 1863, 
which reads : 

Article 13. 

"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, 
except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or 
any place subject to its jurisdiction. 

" Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this 
article by law duly enacted." 

This amendment, with the changes stated by me on page 
331 of this volume, is now part of our national Constitution, 
and you and I know that it will remain there forever. [Ap- 
plause.] 



If, when delivering- the earlier speeches, which your pub- 
lication committee has compiled in this volume before me, 
the announcement had been publich' made, that within the 
life-time of their author, the four million or more of black 
men who were then in bondag-e would so soon thereafter 
be liberated and made citizens, and that out of their poverty 
and helplessness they would be advanced in civilization so 
rapidl}' as to accomplish all the black man in the first 
quarter of a centur}' after his freedom has accomplished, and 
that in their g-ratitude the}' would compile and publish, as 
they have done in this book, some of the appeals made for their 
liberation and enfranchisement, such an announcement would 
have been received by a majority of m}' countrymen, as " mid- 
summer madness." And 3'et if the interpretations put upon 
some of my utterances by 3'our Bishop are not purely imag-- 
inative, I seem before the war, by a process of reasoning" 
satisfactor}' to m3'self, to have comprehended something- of 
the magnitude of the impending- conflict and its results, 
[Applause.] 

Mr. President, in ever}' period of the world's history and 
among- all peoples, thefe have been those who unconsciously 
were illuminated with what the poet calls "the inner 
light," those whose eyes were permitted to look into the 
future and to behold the g'lor}- of the coming- day, before the 
breaking- of the dawn, and to see visions, such as come to 
human souls only when lighted with the g-lory of regions 
celestial. Such was the "inner light," which illuminated 
the g-reat men of the Revolution of 1776, when they launched 
our ship of state, and promulg-ated our immortal Declaration 
of Independence and formed our national Constitution. 

This is the "inner light" which illuminated the souls of 
all the leaders of our g-reat anti-slavery revolution. "A pil- 
lar of cloud by da}^ and a pillar of fire by night," it inspired 
the faith of every living and of every d^-ing- anti-slavery 
hero. [Applause.] 

It inspired John G. Whitticr, our beloved Quaker poet, and 
Frederick Douglass, the negro's matchless representative. It 
inspired William Lloj'd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips, James 
G. Berney and Nathaniel P. Rog-ers, Gerrit Smith and William 
Leg-g-ett, Cassius M. Clay and John G. Fee, Gamaliel Bailey 



and William Goodell, Theodore Parker and Samuel J. May, 
Henry Ward Beecher and Wm. CuUen Bryant, Horace Gree- 
ley and Wm. H. Seward, John P. Hale and Robert Rantoul, 
Salmon P. Chase and Charles Sumner, Joshua R. Gidding-s 
and Benjamin F. Wade, Georg-e W. Julian and David Wilmot ; 
the martyred Lovejoy and the immortal Lincoln ; and I must 
not omit to name with these memorable men, such illus- 
trious women as Harriet Beecher Stowe, L3alia Maria Child, 
Lucretia Mott and Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton 
and Miss Susan B. Anthony. 

To this recog-nized g-alaxy of matchless men and women 
must be added a large number whom no man can name in 
one short address, names worthy of our profoundest regard 
and grateful remembrance. This wonderful army was made 
up of the g-randest men and women who ever walked the 
earth, and made it better for having- lived in it. I mean the 
g-reat body of anti-slavery men and women whom we always 
designated as ' ' the old liberty g-uard. " These are the men and 
women who never bowed the knee to the Moloch of Slavery, 
nor voted to compromise with that indescribable villainy, 
and who practically made the creed, and g-ave life and dignity 
and g"lory to the Republican party, and to each of whom, 
in the dark days of slavery domination, there came in full 
measure the faith they sought, so that at times they were 
illuminated with the "inner light" from realms beyond our 
reach, and were thus able to prophesy our impending- 
triumph. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, the memory of the 22d of September, 1862, 
ought to make jubilant our hearts and quicken our footsteps. 
On that day, eventful to every black man and to the lovers of 
liberty in every land, Abraham Lincoln issued his prelimi- 
nary proclamation of emancipation ! It proved to be a day 
ever memorable in our history, and a da}' of thanksg-iving" 
to every bondman. But the day of its issue was also a day of 
anxiety and fear to millions, and this fear and anxiety was 
especially oppressive to the impassioned leaders of the "old 
anti-slavery guard." All the long- dark nig-ht of that one 
hundred days, they endured the Gethsemane which evermore 
comes to all great souls, and in prayerful supplication 
walked with the nation through the valley of the shadow of 



death. They knew that without the liberation of the negro 
the republic was doomed ! The}" believed that with the Presi- 
dent's Proclamation of Emancipation, it could be saved and 
redeemed. In this sublime and patriotic faith they walked 
with unfaltering- tread, until the 5'ear 1862 expired, 
and the immortal proclamation of Januar}' 1, 1863, was born. 
[Applause.] 

When this welcome proclamation appeared, the soul of the 
nation, out of its sackcloth and ashes, was uplifted to heaven 
in an all-forg-iving- aspirational thanksgiving", and the long 
pent-up hopes of our old anti-slavery champions broke forth 
in songs of jo}^ and shouts of triumph. 

Whittier declared, that there were no words in his Quaker 
vocabulary, with which he could fittingl}' express in crisp 
terms, the emotions of his heart, and that he was compelled 
to use the short, but comprehensive and favorite exclamation 
of his Methodist brethren, and simply shout, "Glory to 
God." 

I do not know what words my friend Douglass used, but I 
am sure they were strong and clear and true. Every loyal 
soul broke forth in words of thankfulness and gladness, as on 
that memorable day, the bells rang out the old and rang in 
the new order of things! In memor}', I now hear the glad 
booming of cannon, the wild roll of drums, and the quickened 
and determined footsteps of our triumphal army, and to- 
night feel like shouting again as I did then: "Glory to God 
in the highest, peace on earth to good-willing men." On 
that day, in every lo^-al church and around every loyal 
hearthstone, songs of triumph and tears of joy were melted 
into one united hallelujah! 

What wonder then, after so long- ei strain, that these shouts 
and songs, mingled with the peals of cannon and the chim- 
ing of bells, thrilled our glad hearts as they did, with a tri- 
umphal melody, akin to the 

"Songs of praise, that awoke the morn. 
When the Prince of Peace was born." 

[Applause.] 



Mr. President, monuments are usually erected by friends 
or by the public long- after men are dead. Never, so far as I 
know, has there been erected a monument to the memory of 
a public man during- his lifetime ! But I who ( barring- acci- 
dents) have fifteen or twenty j^ears of fig-hting- material in 
me yet, find myself at this moment confronted with what 
President Young- and your Bishop are pleased to call 
my monument, and you appear by your approval to 
recog-nize the claim which each has made. I certainly 
recog-nize the fact, that in compiling- and publishing- this 
volume, the American neg-ro has builded me a monu- 
ment more enduring- than an}^ which my family or my 
friends can erect, after I shall have quit this mortal life ; a 
monument more appropriate and welcome than the one which 
your Bishop sa3'S was foreshadowed in the quotation which 
he made a few moments ag-o from one of my addresses in 
this volume, an utterance which he affirms is a prophecy 
now fulfilled, and certainly, if he claims that his interpreta- 
tion is authoritative, I shall not, on an occasion like this, un- 
dertake to question it. [Laug-hter and applause.] 

But whether authoritative or not, I can truthfully and with 
propriety say, that this " Souvenir " is to me a more desirable 
monument than any other which my colored friends could 
have desig-ned or presented to me, for I recog-nize that it 
was conceived by g-enerous and grateful hearts, and built 
with honest hands. I accept it as the black man's tribute 
and testimony. It is a monument which the malig-ner can- 
not misinterpret, nor vandals deface, nor the hired assassin 
•destroy, for I am told you are to duplicate it by thousands I 

And now, what shall I say to my friends of the "Afro- 
American Leag-ue of Tennessee," and to the g-entlemen of the 
Publication Committee, who from the public records and 
from the voluminous yet frag-mentary material placed in 
their hands, have with such care and fidelity compiled this 
volume, in w;hich is reflected so faithfully from my lips and 
pen the views held by me and the measures which I advocat- 
ed, prior to and during- the war of the rebellion, and since. 
The truth is, that I do not know what to say! To make 
fitting- answer I should have need of golden-voweled words, 
the poet's prophetic vision and the thoug-hts of a philosopher. 



As I have them not, I simply sa}' I thank you. Again and 
ag-ain, out of a full heart, I thank both the "Afro-American 
League of Tennessee," and 3'our able and painstaking Pub- 
lication Committee. The declaration of your Bishop, "that 
your Publication Committee found no word or thought or 
vote of mine, which they or any black man, could wish to 
change or blot " — gives me a satisfaction so pure and unalloy- 
ed that no words at my command can fittingly express the 
emotions that stir my heart. Certainly, when these speeches 
and orations were delivered, I did not expect to have this 
priceless testimony come to me. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, as I interpret this occasion and this testi- 
mony it also means much for the negro. It means, a testi- 
mony of his fidelit}- and gratitude! It means, that how- 
ever poor or however black, "A man's a man for a' that." It 
means, that everywhere beneath that flag crime and wrong 
against your race must cease. It means, a recognition of the 
Fatherhood of God — and the brotherhood of man. 

It means that 3'our long dark night of sorrow will soon be 
over, that the du.j is dawning and that the hour now 
draweth nigh, in which the children of Ethiopia may stretch 
forth their glad hands to their Creator and to ours, and with 
confidence claim fulfillment of the Divine promise delivered 
to the world by His Apostles and Prophets. 

" O, clear-eyed Faith, and Patience, thou 

So calm and strong! 
Lend strength to weakness; teach us how 
The sleepless eyes of God look through 

This night of wrong." 

[" Amen" and " amen" and applause.] 

At the conclusion of this masterly address the whole 
audience rose to their feet with cheers, and united in sing- 
ing Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic. 

This hymn may be found in full on page 262 of this volume. 




e-tt . 



€^d<i-. 



Bishop Arnett called Rev. O. P. Ross, of Vicksburg-, 
Mississippi, who presented a duplicate volume of the Souvenir 
to Rev. John Henry Barrows, D. D., President of the Parlia- 
ment of Relig-ions of the World, and also presented one to 
the Hon. C. C. Bonny, President of the Columbian Auxiliary 
Congresses, in the name of the Afro-American Leag"ue of 
Tennessee, and the lovers of human liberty throughout the 
world. 



THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE 

To THE Public : 

The personal correspondence on pages 9 to 12 inclusive 
is self-explanator}'. In addition thereto, it is proper to state, 
that after the material for this book had been compiled, and 
made ready for the printer, we obtained from Mr. Ashlc}^ 
his consent to have the matter thus selected, electrotyped as 
it was set up, so that a book which should be an exact dupli- 
cate copy of the " Souvenir," as to its contents, might be 
copyrighted by us, published from the electrotyped plates 
and sold to the public at moderate cost. 

The only conditions prescribed by Mr. Ashley were that 
the net proceeds arising- from the sale of the book should be 
applied to preparing j^oung men and women of our race to 
become teachers in the public and private negro schools of 
the South. 

Our purpose was, that the book when published should 
be within the reach of all, and be especially for use in Afro- 
American public libraries and in the libraries of our own 
colleges and public and private schools, also for the home 
libraries of all our people and of our law^-ers and clerg}-- 
raen and members of other liberal professions. 

It will be observed, that a number of the speeches and 
addresses selected, were made by Mr. Ashlej- when he was a 
very young man, and that they were made at a time when 
the champions of slavery were masters of the nation, as well 
as our masters. 

The high moral tone of all the speeches, addresses and 
orations contained in the book, their earnestness and ability, 
can not fail to command the attention and respect of even 
the most partisan political opponent. 

In the light of history, the reader will recognize that 
the time and conditions under which these speeches were de- 
livered, stamp them as both masterl}- and prophetic. 



In these speeches will be found a livino- reflex of Mr. 
Ashley's life and character and a faithfully condensed his- 
tory of the g-reat battle wag-ed for our liberation. 

They are calm and eloquent appeals for the rig-hts of our 
race and of all races of men. 

No one of these speeches contains a partisan appeal or 
an appeal in behalf of any clique or faction nor for himself. 
Firm, faithful and just — they are as potent now for liberty 
protected by law, and for the equal rights of all men before 
the law, as they were at the time of their delivery. 

We know of no book in which can be found g-rander ap- 
peals for the rights of man, and in which there appears no 
word or thought that the negro could wish to change or 
blot. 

For a clearer and more specific statement of the contents 
and value of the book, we beg to refer to the " Introduction,"' 
written by Hon. Frederick Douglass and to the letters which 
appear as editorial foot-notes, written by some of our ablest 
men. These notes with the likenesses of some of the writers 
are interspersed throug-out the book. We respectfully com- 
mend this book to our race and to the liberal statesmen of 
America. 

Benjamin W. Aknett, 

Wilbefforce, Ohio, 
Chairman Publication Committee. 
Bishop Benjamin F. Lee, 

Waco, Texas. 
Rev. Charles S. Smith, 

Nashville, Tennessee. 
Pres't I. T. Montgomery, 

Mound Bayou, Miss. 
Bishop W. J. Gaines, 

Atlanta, Ga. 
Rev. J. C. Embry, 

Philadelphia, Pa. 
Rev. a. H. Ross, 

Cynthiana, Kj, 
Prof. B. W. Arnett, Jr., 

Little Rock, Ark. 





CCy4ylyOt<i. iM^ 




As he Appears tiotv. 



THE PA.RLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 

MET IN Chicago, III,., in connection with the World's 

Fair. 

The 22d of September, 1893, was set apart to celebrate 
the thirtieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation 
of Abraham Lincoln, which liberated over 3,500,000 slaves in 
1863. The occasion was thoug-ht to be appropriate to take 
notice of the fact that there was not a leg^al slave on the 
American continent — every man, woman and child were the 
sons and daug"hters of freedom. This occasion was made 
historic by the Afro-American League of Tennessee, who 
presented to the Hon. James M. Ashley a souvenir, as a token 
of the reg-ard of the Afro-Americans for his work in the in- 
terest of universal freedom, and especially in the passage of 
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States, 1865. 

The program was arranged under the direction of Bishop 
B. W. Arnett, who acted for the general committee. 

Friday evening, at eight o'clock, Columbus Hall was 
crowded with an audience of not less than five thousand per- 
sons, from all parts of the world. 

Rev. John Henry Barrows was president. Bishop Daniel 
A. Payne, D. D., LL. D., acted as the chairman. 

Tlie choirs of Quinn Chapel and Bethel A. M. E. 
Church furnished the anthems of freedom. 

Prof. John T. Lay ton, Washington, D. C, sang an orig- 
inal solo. 

Madam Flora Batsen Burgan, of Chicago, sang a solo. 

Prof. T. P. Morgan, of Chicago, and Rev. B. F. Watson, 
of Kansas, led the Battle Hymn of Freedom and other cho- 
ruses. 

Father Slatterly, of Baltimore, read a paper, "The 
Catholic Church and the Colored Race." 



Bishop Benjamin William Arnett delivered the oration 
on the Principles of Libert}^ and also delivered the presenta- 
tion address in behalf of the Afro- American League, to Hon. 
J. M. Ashley. 

The following" will give the reader some idea of the com- 
position of the Parliament of Religions, and the distin- 
guished persons who were in attendance. We also give an 
account of the opening of the Congress of the African Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, and the names of the distinguished 
men and women who were in attendance. It was these two 
distinguished bodies that met to celebrate the jubilee of 
freedom, and to present the volumes to the Hon. James M. 
Ashle}'. It was the most distinguished bod}- that has ever 
met on the American continent, or in the world. 

A writer has given the following description of the meet- 
ing of the Parliament, September 11, 1893: 

"Under the banner of a common hope met yesterday the 
strangest gathering of men the world has seen. No tie of 
blood bound them. Jew sat b}'^ Gentile; Russian b}^ Hindoo; 
Greek b}' negro; Saxon b}^ Gaul. There were black faces 
and white; yellow and red; bearded and shaven. 

"No great scheme of universal power or conquest held 
them. Men were on that platform who owe allegiance to 
the kings of twenty empires. Yet some of them had traveled 
13,000 miles around the world to meet under the bare rafters 
of the Hall of Columbus. 

"To the eye they had nothing in common. They were 
men of many tongues; of all races. Thej^ wore strange robes; 
turbans and tunics; crosses and crescents; flowing hair and 
tonsured scalps. There were spots of Oriental color and bits 
of Occidental gloom. 

" From the four corners of the earth these men had come 
together to forward the cause of a common humanity here 
and hereafter. They had come to demonstrate by their 
presence the vital power of that universal spirit which drives 
men everywhere to look upward at a star. They had come to 
teach the ancient lesson, professed but never practiced, that 
men arc brothers and all the world is kin. The}' had come 



to make memorable tlie most historic day of all this latest 
century. 

"It was the peaceful gfathering- of warring" creeds; the 
parliament of the world's relig-ions. Proselytism and per- 
secution were forg"otten. New England Puritan shook hands 
with a Prince of the Roman Catholic Church. The high priest 
of the Brahmins, oldest of all religions, leaned upon the 
shoulder of a Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, 
himself the founder of the sect. Over them all was lifted the 
common idea of a g-reat Divinity, and in that idea they were 
one. 

DISCIPI,ES OP AI.I, CREEDS. 

" Many notable g^atherings have the gray walls of the 
Art Institute sheltered since the opening- of the world's con- 
g-resses. Leaders in every line of human effort and endeavor 
have met and laid before the world the ripest fruits of their 
toil. Great men have told how nature was being* robbed 
of her secrets; how the lightning- was tamed; how the ocean 
was bridged; how the stars were measured. 

"But, on the platform met disciples of Christ, disciples 
of Mohammed, disciples of Buddha, disciples of Brahma, 
and, standing- together in the name of a common God, asked 
a blessing- upon mankind and all the works of man. It was 
the crown upon the head of g-athered nations; the climax 
the Columbian Exposition has made possible. 

"The people felt the importance of the day. Early 
they moved toward the Art Palace. They filled the great 
Hall of Columbus. 

"Before ten o'clock, the hour set for the great cong-ress 
to open, men and women were turned away to fill other halls 
where overflow meeting-s were held. In the splendid audience, 
numbering- all of 4,000, were hundreds of notable men. They 
were scholars, teachers, dreamers, men who have looked for- 
ward to the day when the united religionists of the world 
might move forward, unbroken, against the forces of in- 
fidelity and disbelief. They were broad-minded, liberal 
men, who have worked their lives through to forward the 
coming- of that day. To them the opening of the World's 



Parliament of Reliofions was like the dawning- of a longf-ex- 
pected sun. When the long" line of delegates, many of them 
in splendid robes, moved forward to the platform, tears of joy 
glistened in many earnest eyes. 



ALL JOIN IN THE DOXOLOGY. 

"But wait! From the grand org-an peal the inspiring- 
strains of 'Praise God from Whom All Blessing-s Flow.' 
All are on their feet. Men of all relig-ions are sing-ing- the 
doxologfy. Then his Eminence, James, Cardinal Gibbons, 
splendid in the scarlet and black robes of his office, steps to 
the front of the platform. He lifts his thin white hands 
above the bowed heads. " Our Father, who art in Heaven," 
he beg-ins. Thousands follow him in repeating- the Lord's 
Pra3'er, among- them many of the disting-uished deleg-ates up- 
on the platform. Already the men of all relig-ions have 
found a common creed. 

"But if the deep sig-nificance of the g-reat parliament 
was stirring- in the hearts of men, no less striking- and 
picturesque was the scene set before their eyes when the 
deleg-ates sat down in long- triple lines upon the platform. 
In the middle a flash of flaming- scarlet reflected from the 
robes of the Cardinal; at his rig-ht the lavender and black 
lace gown, which set off the beauty of the President of 
the Board of Lady Managers; at his left the high black 
peaked cap, the trailing robes and the golden chains of the 
Bishop of the Greek Church; further on, the green and 
garnet velvet tunics of East Indian Punjabs; here the single 
violet orange garment of a Hindoo monk; there the pinks of 
a Japanese Bishop and his suite; on one side black and royal 
purple where sit a group of Archbishops of the Catholic 
Church; on the other, the gorgeous red and gold of a mem- 
ber of a Hindoo Sisterhood — a confusion of colors, as strange 
as the confusion of tongues, of races and of religions. 

"Through all the addresses of welcome and many re- 
sponses ran one clear note. It spoke of the Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of man. From the great leaders 
of all religions came the same message. 




^^^cdA-€^A ^^7 ■ *^->^ c/t^^-^^^ 



"It was an imposing- procession that filed upon the plat- 
form of the Hall of Columbus, led by President Bonney, 
escorting- the head of the Catholic Church in America, Car- 
dinal Gibbons. There were Caucasians, Mongolians and 
Ethiopians, men from all the nations of the earth, represent- 
ing- all the religions of the earth. They seated themselves 
closely together upon the huge platform, the strangers from 
the farther points of the world with their picturesque g-arbs, 
in front. Those upon the platform were : 

" Bishop D. A. Payne, A. M. E. Church, of Wilberforce, 
O. ; Siddliu Ram, appeal writer, Mooltan Punjab, East India ; 
Carl von Berg-en, Ph. D., President of the Swedish Society 
for Psychical Research, Stockholm, Sweden ; Birchard 
Rag-havji Gandhi, B. A., Honorary Secretary to the Jain 
Association of India, Bombay ; Sward Vivekananda, a monk 
of the orthodox Brahminical religion ; the Rev. B. B. Nagar- 
kar, minister, Brahmo Somaj of Bombay-, India ; the Rev. 
P. C. Mazoomdar, minister and leader of the Brahmo Somaj of 
India, Calcutta ; Jinda Ram, a lawyer, President of the 
Temperance Society, Vedic, Muzaffargarh, India ; the Rev. 
P. G. Phiambolis, Oeconomus, a priest of the Greek Church ; 
his Grace the Archbishop of Zante, of the Greek Church ; 
Homer Peratis, Archdeacon of the Greek Church ; Reiich 
Shibata, President of one of the Shinto sects, Tokio, Japan ; 
Ashitsu Zitsuzen, representative from the Tendai sect, Omi, 
Japan ; Banrin Yatsubuehi, President of Hoju Buddhist So- 
ciety, Hamemsto, Japan ; Shaka Soon, Archbishop of one of 
the Buddhist sects, Kamakura, Japan ; Horin Toki, Professor 
of Shingen sect, and its Bishop, Sanuki, Japan ; Nog-uchi 
and Negura, interpreters, Tokio, Japan ; Bharmapala, Gen- 
eral Secretary, Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta ; Prof. G. N. 
Chakravarti, Allahabad, India ; Dr. F. A. Noble, Prince 
Serg-e Wolkonsky of Russia ; D. G. Crandon, Secretary of 
the Free Religious Society of Boston ; the Rev. J. H. Ma- 
cauber, chaplain U. S. A., Angel Island, Cal.; Yungkwai, 
China, Miss Jeanne Serabji K. Lang-rana ; G. Benet Maury, 
Professor a la Fauilte de Theologic, Paris ; Prince Momolu 
Massaquoi of Liberia; Bishop Jenner, Anglican Free Church; 
the Rev. Aug-usta J. Chapin, D. D., Chicago; Mrs. Potter 
Palmer, Mrs. Charles Henrotin, Cardinal Gibbons, Arch- 



bishop Feehan, Archbishop Ryan, Archbishop Redwood, of 
New Zealand; President C. C. Bonne}-, Dr. Adolf Bredbeck, 
Count Bernsterff, Z. Zmigrowski, John W. Hoyt, Bishop 
Keane, H. N. Hig-inbotham, W. J. Onahan, the Rev. Jenkin 
Llo^'d Jones, Bishop B. W. Arnett, Bishop J. A. Handy, Prin- 
cipal Grant, of Canada, the Rev. Alfred Williams Momerie, 
D. D., the Rev. Maurice Phillips of Madras, India ; Prof. N. 
Valentine, William T. Harris, Commissioner Education of 
United States, Dr. Ernest Faber, the Rev. Geo. T. Candlin, 
Prof. Kosahi, Bishop Cotter, of Winona; Prof. Chakravarti, 
Rt. Rev. Banrin Yatsubuchu, Hon. Pung- Quang- Yu, Chinese 
Leg-ation." 

September 22d, 1893, was the day of the meeting- of the 
African M. E. Cong-ress. At an earl}^ hour the men, women 
and children of the church were seen making- their way to 
Art Palace. The reception room of Hon. C. C. Bonne}^ was 
g-iven us for a place of meeting-. When the bishops, g-eneral 
officers, presiding- elders, elders, members and friends of the 
church met, a procession was formed and all marched to the 
Hall of Washing-ton. There we found a larg-e audience 
waiting- for us, who cheered as the procession marched on the 
platform. 

The org-anist played a march, and choruses were sung- 
and a song- of praise to God was sung-, and when we were all 
seated on the stag-e all joined in sing-ing- " Praise God from 
whom all blessing-s flow." It was a g-rand sig-ht to see men 
and women of every nation and race joining- with the chorus 
of freedom and with the children of freedom in sing-ing- song-s 
of praise to God. 

The following- are some of the disting-uished persons 
present : 

Bishop D. A. Payne, Wilberforce, Ohio; Bishop A. W. 
Waynian, Baltimore, Md.; Bishop H. M. Turner, Atlanta, 
Ga.; Bishop W. J. Gaines, Atlanta, Ga.; Bishop B. T. Tan- 
ner, Philadelphia, Pa.; Bishop A. Grant, Atlanta, Ga.; 
Bishop J. A. Handy, Kansas City, Kan.; Bishop B. W. 
Arnett, Wilberforce, Ohio; Bishop Walters, D. D., A. M. E. 
Zion Church; Hon. C. C. Bonney, Chicag-o, 111,; Hon. C. E. 
Young; Hon. Frederick Doug-las, LL. D., Washing-ton, D. C; 
Prince Serg-e Wolkonsk}^ St. Petersburg-, Russia; Mrs. 



Isabella B. Hooker, Connecticut; Rev. S. P. Mercer, Chicag-o, 
111.; Rev. J. C. Embry, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. L. J. 
Coppin, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. H. T. Johnson, D. D., 
A. M., Ph.D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. Wm. D. Johnson, 
D. D., Atlanta, Ga.; Rev. C. S. Smith, D. D., Nashville, 
Tenn.; Rev. W. B. Derrick, D. D., New York, N. Y.; Rev. 
J. H. Armstrong-, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. A. M. 
Green, D. D., New Orleans, La.; Mrs. Bishop B. W. Arnett, 
Wilberforce, Ohio; Mrs. Bishop B. T. Tanner, Philadelphia, 
Pa.; Mrs. Bishop H. M. Turner, Atlanta, Ga.; Mrs. Bishop 
A. W. Wayman, Baltimore, Md.; Mrs. Dr. W. H. Yeocum, 
Camden, N. J.; Mrs. Rev. G. W. Prioleau, Wilberforce, Ohio; 
Mrs. Rev. G. h. Jackson, Nashville, Tenn.; Mrs. Rev. J. H. 
Armstrong-, Washing-ton, D. C; Mrs. Rev. A. A. Whitman, 
Lawrence, Kan.; Mrs. Rev. O. P. Ross, Vicksburg, Miss.; 
Mrs. Rev. C. H. Thomas, Chicag-o, 111.; Mrs. Rev. D. A. 
Graham, Chicag-o, 111.; Mrs. S. J. W. Earlej, Nashville, 
Tenn.; Mrs. Landonia Williams, Indianapolis, Ind.; Mrs. 
Louisa White, Portsmouth, Ohio; Prince Momo Massaqua, 
Africa; Mrs. Grace Offer, Pittsburg-h, Pa.; Mrs. E. J. Pag-e, 
Cincinnati, Ohio; Mrs. E. J. Thompson, Pittsburg-h, Pa.; Mrs. 
Eudora Duncan, Toledo, Ohio; Mrs. Henrietta Morg-an, 
Chicago, 111.; Mrs. W. R. Rodg-er Webb, Texarkana; Mrs. 
Saddie Tyree, Washing-ton, D. C; Mrs. J. A. Davis, Nash- 
ville, Tenn.; Mrs. J. A. Brown, Cleveland, Ohio; Rev. W. 
H. Mixon, Selma, Ala.; Rev. W. A. Moore, Lincoln, Neb.; 
Rev. J. W. Beckett, Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Jno. Coleman, 
Portsmouth, Ohio; Rev. A. A. Whitman, Lawrence, Kan.; 
Hon. Jas. Madison Bell, Toledo, Ohio; Prof. J. P. Shor- 
ter, Wilberforce, Ohio; Rev. Geo. W. Prioleau, Wilber- 
force, Ohio; Rev. S. A. Hardison, Clinton, Iowa; Rev. Jas. 
M. Townsend, Chicag-o, 111.; Rev. Henry Brown, Spring-- 
field. 111.; Rev. I. S. Lee, Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Jno. Hurst, 
Baltimore,' Md.; Rev. Cornelius Asburj-, Pittsburg-h, Pa.; Rev. 
S. R. Reed, Memphis, Tenn.; Rev. B. F. Watson, Wichita, 
Kan.; Rev. Jno. G. Mitchell, Wilberforce, Ohio; Rev. W. A. J. 
Phillips, Little Rock, Ark. ; Rev. W. J. Davis, Champaign, 111. ; 
Rev. C. H. Thomas, Chicago, 111.; Rev. W. H. Yeocum, Cam- 
den, N. J; Rev. J. A. Davis, Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. Chas. H. 
Sheen, Cairo, 111.; Rev. J. H. Morgen, Orange, N. J.; Rev. Jno. 



T. Jenifer, Washingfton, D. C. ; Rev. Jno, B. Dawison, Evans- 
ton, 111.; Rev. D. S. Bentley, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Rev. P. A. Hub- 
bard, Denver, Col.; Rev. S. A. Johnson, Washing-ton, D. C. ; 
Rev. G. W. Gaines, St. Paul, Minn.; Rev. E. H. Bolden, Ports- 
mouth, Va. ; Rev. O. D. Robinson, Baltimore, Md. ; Rev. Jas. 
T. Evans, Carlisle, Pa.; Hon. I. T. Montgomery, Mound 
Baj^ou, Miss.; Rev. R. McDaniel, Indiana; Rev. Walter S. 
Lewis, Memphis, Tenn. ; Rev. W. H. Brow^n, New Brighton, 
Pa.; Rev. S. B. Jones, Ottumwa, Iowa; Rev. Jno. A. Collins, 
Grand Rapids, Mich.; Rev. Walter S. Lowerj', Pittsburgh, 
Pa.; Rev. J. H. McGee, Chicago, 111.; Rev. D. Franklin Tay- 
lor, Palestine, Texas; Rev. C. H. Johnson, Washington C. H., 
Ohio; Rev. J. C. Anderson, Rockford, 111.; Rev. Anderson 
Hunter, Troup, Texas; Rev. F. T. Harver}-, Decatur, 111.; 
Rev. Jno. M. Henderson, Detroit, Mich.; Rev. T. W. Hender- 
son, Indianapolis, Ind.; Prof. F. H. Steward, Wisconsin; Miss 
IdaB. Wells, Chicago, 111.; Miss F. E. W. Harper, Chicago, 
111.; Miss Mary Harper, Chicago, 111.; Daniel Payne Arnett, 
Wilberforce, Ohio; Hon. James Hill, Jackson, Miss.; Rev. 
W. W. Beckett, Charleston, S. C. ; Rev. S. F. Flegler, Sum- 
merville, S. C; Rev. John H. Welsh, Charleston, S. C; Rev. 
M. B. Parks, Omaha, Neb.; Rev. O. P. Ross, Vicksburg, 
Miss.; Prof. W. S. Scarborough, LE. D., Wilberforce, Ohio. 



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